Meteorites are perhaps one of the most tangible aspects of outer space. With their irregular, ablated surfaces and intricate Widmanstätten microstructures, they truly appear to be otherworldly. The internal microstructure and composition of meteorites has been intensively studied and classified by astro- and geo-chemists to study their origins and formation processes [1]. However, other than some microhardness testing in the 1950s [2], very little has been done to characterize the mechanical behavior of these unique pieces of other worlds. With the advent of modern, high speed nanoindentation techniques, it is now possible to map the mechanical features of materials over square millimeters of area with micron-level resolution in a reasonable amount of time.
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