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Unlike 99% of all meteorites, oriented meteorites don’t invert or tumble as they plunge through Earth’s atmosphere. This only occurs when there is a fortuitous distribution of the meteorite’s mass as well as a fortuitous angle of entry into the atmosphere. As a result of maintaining the same axis of orientation, such meteorites gain a wonderful aesthetic appearance and their direction of flight is readily discerned. The parabolic curve on the leading face of oriented meteorites is the angle at which heat is most efficiently deflected from a falling body — and this same curve inspired the design of the heat shields for NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules.
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