Iron meteorite

Iron meteorite
— Type —
Tamentit Iron Meteorite, found in 1864 in the Sahara,[1] weighing about 500 kg (1,100 lb). On display at Vulcania park in France.
Compositional type	Iron
Parent body	>50
Composition	>95% iron, nickel, and cobalt; 5–25% nickel
TKW	c. 500 short tons (450 t)
Widmanstätten pattern as seen on an etched and polished slice of the Seymchan meteorite. Scale unknown.

Iron meteorites, also called siderites or ferrous meteorites, are a type of meteorite that consist overwhelmingly of an iron–nickel alloy known as meteoric iron that usually consists of two mineral phases: kamacite and taenite. Most iron meteorites originate from cores of planetesimals,^[2] with the exception of the IIE iron meteorite group^[3]

The iron found in iron meteorites was one of the earliest sources of usable iron available to humans, due to the malleability and ductility of the meteoric iron,^[4] before the development of smelting that signaled the beginning of the Iron Age.