Meteorites are natural lumps of rock and/or metal that fall to Earth from Space. Most meteorites are from the Asteroid Belt, with a few from the Moon or from Mars, but their ultimate origins extend more widely through the Solar System. More than 150 parent bodies are represented among more than 65 000 meteorites known. Certain meteorite components provide an age for the Solar System of 4567 million years. Various meteorite classifications have been proposed based on composition, texture and inferred formation processes, but the most informative of these encompasses aspects of all of these properties.
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