Today in History - 1803

A meteorite shower of more than 3,000 fragments of an L chondrite that rained down on the town of L'Aigle in Normandy, France, 70 km west of Paris. It proved to be a turning point in the understanding of meteorites and their origins. Until this time, the idea that rocks came from space seemed fantastic, and even witnessed meteorite falls were treated with skepticism. But, upon hearing of the extraordinary events at L'Aigle, the French Academy of Sciences sent Jean-Baptiste Biot to investigate. His passionate paper describing how these stones must undoubtedly be of extraterrestrial origin effectively gave birth to the science of meteoritics.
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