Meteorite (biome)

A crashed Meteorite is a medium-level event location. A Meteorite crash site will spawn when a Shadow Orb is smashed. If a Shadow Orb is already smashed, smashing three more will cause a meteor to spawn. It is very rare for meteorite to be generated randomly on a map.

Event
You will be notified by a chat message: "A meteorite has landed!" when a Meteorite strikes the surface. This can sometimes happen immediately after breaking a Shadow Orb, or can take up to several days.

The Meteorite will land somewhere on the surface, replacing many blocks dozens of blocks deep with Meteorite in a roughly circular pattern. Touching the Meteorite 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 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.

Usefulness
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 blocks remain unmined) 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.

Monsters in Meteorite Biome

 * Meteor Head