Since it is known that the Earth has a substantial amount of elemental iron and nickel in its core, this leads credence to this theory and gives us much to think about. Many, however, believe the meteor debris to be left over primordial material that the Earth and the other planets were built from. Meteorites are very diverse and even novice collectors can distinguish samples from different known meteorites by their unique character. Often these meteorites have inclusions of large crystals of other minerals such as olivines or pyroxenes , etc or the iron has a unique crystal pattern that is characteristic. Due to the nature of iron, care should be used in the preserving of valuable iron-nickel samples.
Color is steel gray or black.
Luster is metallic. Transparency is opaque. Crystal Habits crystal form is extremely rare, when etched, meteoritic examples may show interesting and complicated intergrowths of cystals according to different nickel-iron concentrates. Terrestrial samples are massive and appear as small flakes and irregular masses. Meteoritic samples are usually rounded, pitted and irregular.