Meteorites can be found in deserts or on glaciers, with known fields in many deserts. They are named based on how they are found, with chondrites being the most common and iron meteorites having a typical appearance. The largest iron meteorite is the Hoba meteorite in Namibia.
Meteorites can theoretically be found in any true desert or anywhere on a perennial glacier, especially the entire continent of Antarctica. Meteor hunting can actually be undertaken by anyone as a hob using a metal detector in a known litter field (a region with numerous meteorites that are fragments of a parent body). There are known fields scattered across many deserts around the world, for example the Fraconia Meteorite Strewnfield in Arizona.
Meteorites have different names depending on the circumstances in which they were found: when a meteorite descends and is subsequently recovered, this is known as a fall. When the meteorite is just found on the ground with no previous reports of it about to fall, it is simply referred to as a find. In all, there are approximately 1,050 witnessed falls and over 31,000 well-documented finds. Meteorites are always named after the place where they were found.
The most common types of meteorite are stony chondrites, named for the small spheres that are their main constituent. These millimeter-sized spheres originated as molten droplets in the early days of the solar system before aggregating into larger asteroids. 27,000 of all meteorites found are chondrites and many of them have high iron-nickel content, making it possible to find them with a metal detector. The only downside to these meteorites is that they don’t look like obvious meteorites to the untrained eye.
The meteorites that have the most typical “meteorite” appearance are iron meteorites, which account for about 6% of all meteorites found. These are among the most famous and best known, the largest being the Hoba meteorite in Namibia, with a length of 2.7 meters (8 feet 9 inches) and a weight of 60 tons. The Hoba meteorite is the largest naturally occurring piece of iron on the Earth’s surface. Collectively, iron meteorites make up about 90% of the mass of all known meteorites.
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