Most meteorites are fragments of asteroids, small bodies mostly located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. However, a minor fraction of the meteorites comes from so-called "planetary" bodies such as Mars and the Moon. A few rare meteorites come from comets.

The most primitive meteorites (chondrites) allow us to study the various stages of the formation of the Sun and planets, a process that took place 4.5 billion years ago in a gigantic cloud of gas and dust. The so-called ‘differentiated’ meteorites have recorded the evolution of the most massive rocky bodies in our solar system, like such as Vesta, Mars and the Moon, from which they are derived.

The collection also includes samples from most of the French meteorite falls observed to date (over 60), some of which (Ornans, Aubres…) define meteorite classes.

Until the end of the 18th century, meteorites were objects of fear or superstition that were neglected by scientists. The Ensisheim meteorite (1492), the first European fall from which a sample has been preserved, was chained up in the church of this eponymous town in Alsace for several centuries – until revolutionaries liberated it in 1793. In 1794, the German scientist, Ernst Chladni (1756-1827), suggested that meteorites might be bodies foreign to our planet. But it was not until the chemical and mineralogical studies of Edward Howard (1774-1816) and Jacques Louis de Bournon (1751-1825) in 1802 and the investigation into the fall of L'Aigle (Lower Normandy) carried out by Jean-Baptiste Biot (1774-1863) in 1803 that his bold theses were accepted by the European scientific community.

The first meteorites to enter the collection of the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle were donated by scientists working on these stones. Pierre-Louis Antoine Cordier (1777-1861) drew up the first official catalogue of the meteorite collection in 1843 (27 specimens). When he died in 1861, the Muséum’s collection contained 78 meteorites. The work of his successor to the Muséum geology chair was essential to the collection’s increase. Gabriel-Auguste Daubrée (1814-1896) first gathered together the meteorites that had been dispersed across several laboratories and through donations, purchases and exchanges, put the collection above 1000 specimens. Under Stanislas Meunier (1843-1925) and Alfred Lacroix (1863-1948), this total increased threefold.

Nowadays, the collection is growing at an average rate of a dozen samples per year, through purchases and donations. Systematic research campaigns in the Atacama Desert (Chile) have also added tens of specimens to the collection. The Vigie-Ciel programme has enabled the addition of two meteorites to our collection.

Each year, a few tens of specimens are entrusted to various institutions for scientific or artistic exhibitions. About hundred samples are also loaned or donated for scientific purposes to researchers in France or abroad.

At the Museum itself, research is carried out using high-tech instruments, such as the nanoSIMS, focuses on chondrites and Martian meteorites. The former enable us to understand the formation of the Sun and the planets, the latter the geological evolution of the planet Mars.

Instructions 

• All sample requests should be made on MUSE, the Collections Counter.
• A Meteorite sample request form (Word file available for download below) should be attached to the request made on MUSE, the Collections Counter.
• The form should be filled by individuals holding a permanent position.
• The requesters are kindly asked to limit the number of specimens requested to a reasonable number (avoid shopping lists easy to make, complicated to fulfil). In general, the number of allocated specimens will not exceed 5.

General informations 

• The request will be examined by the curatorial team (Chloé Brillatz, Béatrice Doisneau, Matthieu Gounelle, Emmanuel Jacquet and Jean-Christophe Viennet) as well as an advisory committee composed of ~10 members.
• While requests can be posted at any time, none will be examined in July and August.
• The final decision will be based on the clarity and the scientific qualities of the proposal. We will also pay particular attention to the good match between the nature of the sample, the requested mass, the scientific justification and the total mass of the meteorite of interest deposited at the MNHN. 

Matthieu Gounelle, Curation officer for the meteorite collection:
matthieu.gounelle [@] mnhn.fr