Diogenite is one of the rarest meteorite petrologic classifications arriving arriving on Earth.

This material is apparently from the 4-Vesta parent body or some precursor or ejecta from it. The derivation of the term "diogenite" however, is somewhat different: from Diogenes of Apollonia, the ancient Greek philosopher born in Crete. Diogenes has the distinction of being the first person in known recorded history to have correctly postulated that "invisible stones" in the heavens ocassionally fell to earth as fireballs. Diogenes' thought was heavily influenced by Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, who was of the famed Ionian school, and born approximately in 500 B.C., whereas Diogenes was probably 20-30 years his junior.

Thus, to best understand ancient science of meteorites, first it is helpful to study Diogenes of Apollonia's mentor, the philosopher and Cosmologist Anaxagoras of Clazomenae:

Among the many startling correct predictions of the genius of Anaxagoras, are the following astronomical hypotheses:

Anaxagoras's Correct Predictions

1. The Sun and the Moon and all the stars are fiery stones carried round by the rotation of the ether.

2. Shooting stars were sparks, as it were, which leapt out owing to the motion of the heavenly vault.

3. Under the stars are the Sun and Moon, and also certain bodies which revolve with them, but are invisible to us.

4. We do not feel the heat of the stars because of the greatness of their distance from the earth and, further, they are not so warm as the Sun, because they occupy a colder region.

5. The Moon is below the Sun, and nearer us.

6. The Sun is a mass of burning iron which surpasses the Peloponnesus in size.

7. The Moon has not a light of her own, but gets it from the Sun.

8. The course of the stars goes under the Earth.

9. The Moon is eclipsed by the Earth screening the Sun's light from it, and sometimes, too, by the bodies below the Moon coming before it.

10. The Sun is eclipsed at the new moon, when the Moon screens it from us.

11. The Moon was made of earth, and has plains, hills and ravines in it.

12. The Milky Way is the reflection of the light of the stars that were not illuminated by the Sun.

Plato also confirms that Anaxagoras properly discovered the reason of Moon's light, and of both solar and lunar eclipses. Anaxagoras idea that meteors were sparks, "leaping from the firmament," is not so far from the modern understanding of tektites, Lunar, Martian and other meteorites originating from parent bodies. It is likely that Anaxagoras had studied meteoric stones to arrive at his deductions for the composition of the Sun. Anaxagoras was intimately related to the ancient Iron meteorite fall at AEGESPOTOMI, and it is likely he had studied other meteorites. Anaxagoras went on to assert that "Space is full of falling stones," though it is not clear whether he recognized that the shooting stars he knew were the same falling stones he studied. In any case it is a reasonable presumption that his insightful theories on the Sun were influenced by the stones which fells from heaven as a brilliant light. Heavily influenced by Anaxagoras, Diogenes of Apollonia's work has survived in some fragments including the first documented explanation of the modern concept of meteorites. Diogenes of Apollonia makes air the element, and holds that all things are in motion, and that there are innumerable worlds. And he describes the origin of the world thus. When the All moves and becomes rare in one place and dense in another, where the dense met together it formed a mass, and then the other things arose in the same way, the lightest parts occupying the highest position and producing the Sun. [Plut.] Strom. fr. 12 (R. P. 215).

Diogenes's Predictions

1. Nothing is spontaneously generated nor destroyed. Diog. ix. 57 (R. P. 215).

2. The Earth is round (in the sense or a flat disk), poised in the middle, having received its shape through the revolution proceeding from the warm and its solidification from the cold. Diog. ix. 57 (R. P. 215).

3. The heavenly bodies are like pumice stone. They are porous, allowing the world to breathe, and they are red-hot. Aet. ii. 13, 5 = Stob. i. 508 (R. P. 215).

4. The Sun is like pumice stone, and into it the rays from the ether fix themselves. Aet. ii. 20, 10.

5. The moon was a pumice-like conflagration. Ib. ii. 25, 10.

6. Along with the visible heavenly bodies revolve invisible stones, which for that very reason are nameless; but they often fall and are extinguished on the earth like the stone star which fell down flaming at AEGOSPOTAMI. Ib. ii. 13, 9.

7. The differentiations into opposites which Air may undergo are, as Anaxagoras had taught, infinite in number; but all may be reduced to the primary opposition of rare and dense. We may gather, too, from Censorinus that Diogenes did not, like Anaximenes, speak of earth and water arise from blood, flesh, and bones, followed Anaxagoras.

8. That portion of Air which was rarefied became fiery, and produced the Sun and heavenly bodies. The circular motion of the world is due to the intelligence of the Air, as is also the division of all things into different forms of body and the observance of them.

9. Diogenes thought that heavenly bodies were not made of air or fire, nor did he believe Anaxagoras, that they were stones. He imagined they were pumice like, as in Leucippus's earlier beliefs. They were earthlike, though porous with fire permeating them. But, many dark celestial bodies are are not porous, being solid stones, and therefore cannot be penetrated by the fire. It was one of these that fell into the AEGOSPOTAMI.