Meteorite physical properties, meteor models, and the structure of minor solar system bodies

Meteorites provide our primary laboratory samples of materials from the solar system. Their properties are our best representatives of the materials that make up asteroids, the rocky material of ice rich bodies from comets to trans-Neptunian objects, and the interplanetary dust whose entry into the Earth’s atmosphere we observe as meteors. Thus measurements of the relevant physical properties of meteorites put important constraints on our models of the nature and evolution of these objects.