Meteorites

We are proud to add a 0.05 gram specimen of the Orgueil meteorite to our permanent scientific collection. First recovered in southern France in 1864, this rare CI1 carbonaceous chondrite formed about 4.56 billion years ago and preserves some of the most primitive material from the early Solar System. Its composition closely matches the Sun's elemental makeup (excluding hydrogen and helium), making it an important reference in planetary science and a remarkable fragment of ancient cosmic history.

Meteorites are among the rarest natural objects people can encounter on Earth. In a nutshell, a meteorite is a piece of material from space that survives its journey through Earth’s atmosphere and reaches the ground. Meteorites offer a rare opportunity to study material that formed at the very beginning of the solar system, long before Earth looked anything like it does today. Scientists study meteorites because they preserve information that is no longer available in Earth’s rocks. For everyone else, they are tangible fragments of the wider cosmos.