Fact file: visitors from outer space

· The Nandan County meteorite shower: The only iron meteorite shower recorded by scholars in ancient China

According to records compiled in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the summer of 1516 saw strings of meteorites shaped like snakes and dragons, and accompanied by fierce lightning, crash to earth in what is now the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. The local farmers believed the meteorites scattered around their farmlands were iron ore and tried unsuccessfully to melt them. In 1964, scientists identified the stones as meteorites.

The Xinjiang meteorite: The largest iron meteorite in China and the third-largest in the world