Meteorites 隕石

Meteorites are small rocks that fall to Earth from outer space. These rocks are pieces of larger rocks that have exploded. When the larger rocks explode, the smaller rocks are scattered through outer space and sometimes fall on planets.

Most of these rocks burn up when they get near the Earth. When you see a bright light shooting across the sky at night, that is one of these rocks burning up. When the rocks do not completely burn up before they hit the ground, we call them meteorites.

There have even been some meteorites that have hit people and caused damage.

Nobody knows for sure why all the dinosaurs died, but some people believe that when a large meteorite hit the Earth 65 million years ago, it changed the climate and killed all the dinosaurs. (Hsiang-yi Cheng, staff writer)

隕石是從太空墜落到地球的小石頭。它們是大岩石爆裂後的碎塊，零星分散在宇宙中，時而墜落在星球上。

多數隕石靠近地球就會燃燒殆盡。夜晚劃過天際的亮光就是燃燒中的石頭，而著地前未燒盡的石頭便稱隕石。

隕石甚至會擊中人並且造成損害。

沒人確切知道恐龍絕種的原因，但有些人相信六千五百萬年前一顆巨大隕石撞擊地球後所帶來的氣候變遷導致恐龍滅絕。 （翻譯：藍孟翔）