Meteorite (biome)

A crashed meteorite is a medium-level event location. A meteorite crash site may spawn at midnight with a 50% chance when a Shadow Orb is smashed. Additionally, each night, there is a 2% chance that a meteor will fall if at least one Shadow Orb has already been smashed.

Meteors will not fall if there are already a certain number of Meteorite tiles above 0 depth. In small worlds this limit is 400, medium worlds is 600 and large worlds is 800.

Event
You will be notified by a chat message: "A meteorite has landed!" when a meteorite strikes the surface. This happens at midnight, or immediately after smashing a Shadow Orb when midnight has passed, but it's still night.

The meteorite will land somewhere on the surface, replacing dozens of blocks deep with Meteorite in a roughly circular pattern. Touching it itself will burn you and knock you back unless you have an Obsidian Skull accessory equipped. A Cobalt Shield will prevent the knockback, but you will still be hurt by the Meteorite.

Note that if you have built a single-block bridge (even one composed of wood platforms) in the sky in search of Floating Islands it is possible for a meteorite to land on that bridge and you will end up getting only a small amount of Meteorite. It is suggested to destroy any paths in the sky before smashing a Shadow Orb in order to get a normal amount of Meteorite.

Note also that when it is stated that the meteorite can land 'somewhere on the surface,' these locations include the Floating Islands, inside of a corruption chasm, as well as the Dungeon.

The meteorite can also land in one of the oceans, making mining extremely difficult.

Use
You can mine Meteorite ore from the impact site, allowing you to craft Meteorite Bars at a furnace and craft a variety of equipment.

Meteor Heads will continuously spawn and attack you while you mine. They can pass through all blocks and fly, so it can be quite difficult for characters without good armor or weapons to attempt to mine the Meteorite.

Once most of the Meteorite has been mined (less than 50 Meteorite remain unmined; about 10%) the music will change back to normal and Meteor Heads will stop spawning, although the remaining Meteor Heads will still attack. Afterwards, the remainder of the Meteorite can be safely mined or ignored.

Mining Strategy
If you can get all existing Meteor Heads on one side of you, you can mine the Meteorite with your pickaxe and at the same time cause the pickaxe to knock back any Meteor Heads which approach.

Dynamite is very useful for mining meteorites, a single stick thrown onto roughly the center of the Meteor will demolish much of the ore. Sticky Bombs are also suggested, you can throw several sticky bombs onto the Meteor and then back off, fight off the Meteor Heads, and allow the bombs to explode and mine the ore for you.

With two players, one player with mana and Vilethorn can protect the mining player rather easily if they stick together. (The Vilethorn will kill a Meteor Head in one direct hit, and it goes through walls as do the Meteor Heads.

Meteorite in a corruption area will not stop corruption enemies from spawning. One strategy to avoid the Eater of Souls while mining is by tunneling under the meteor. This will not protect you from Devourers however. If you do tunnel, use sticky bombs to make the process go quicker. Just plant the bomb, run to the other side of the tunnel, and get the meteorite.

Monsters in Meteorite Biome

 * Meteor Head