NEUMANN LINE

any of the fine, straight, scratchlike marks that appear when some iron meteorites are cut open and the exposed surface polished and etched. The lines reveal an internal structure thought to result from some violent strain, such as a collision between astronomical bodies, that the meteorite was subjected to before its fall. They are named for their discoverer, German mineralogist Franz Ernst Neumann (17981895). See also Widmansttten pattern.