| More than 20,000 meteorites are in collections around the world. Here are some of the best places to go to view them.
- The world's largest meteorite was found in 1920 at Hoba West, near Grootfontein in Namibia. The iron block is 2.7 metres (8.9 feet) by 2.4 m (7.9 ft) and weighs about 60 tonnes. It can be seen rusting away in the ground where it fell.
- The biggest meteorite in a museum is the 31-tonne Cape York iron meteorite, found in Greenland in 1894 by explorer Robert Peary. The Inuit knew it as Ahnighito ('Tent') and used it to make tools. Peary built a timber bridge mounted with steel railroad tracks to transfer the giant on to his ship from the pier. It is now on display (where visitors can touch it) in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, along with two smaller meteorites known as 'Woman' and 'Dog', which Peary had floated to his ship on ice blocks.
You can also see the 16-ton Willamette meteorite at the American Museum of Natural History, but maybe not for long. On 19 February 2000, a group of Native Americans from the Clackamas tribe of Oregon submitted a claim to have the meteorite, which centuries ago was adopted by the tribe as a sacred object, returned to them. Regardless of the legal aspects, this could prove difficult: the meteorite - the size of a small car - has been virtually built into the museum's new planetarium.
- The collection on display in London's Natural History Museum includes: chunks from Barwell, Glatton and Rowton (see British happenings); a 25 kg (55 lb) stone that fell in Yorkshire in 1795; an iron and some impact glass from Wabar in Saudi Arabia (see Impact sites); and a portion of the Zagami Mars meteorite found in Nigeria in 1962. The largest exhibit is the rusty 3.5-tonne Cranbourne iron, discovered in Victoria, Australia in 1854.
- The National Museum of Natural History, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, has loads of meteorites on display, especially irons, and including several from Mars.
- The oldest meteorite fall that we know was witnessed occurred in November 1492 in the French village of Ensisheim near the Swiss border. A fragment is on show in the local church.
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