How Many Meteors Actually Hit Earth Every Year?
A meteor is a broken fragment of rock from space, such as debris from an asteroid collision, that enters Earth's atmosphere. They are typically visible at night as they make fast-moving streaks through the sky and are popularly referred to as "shooting stars."
The name meteor is
changed to meteorite when a meteor actually hits the ground rather than burning
up in the atmosphere; meteors and meteorites are the same thing, though,
just in different stages of their journeys. Thousands of
meteorites – typically made up of iron and nickel, silicate
materials, or a mix of both of them — actually do hit Earth every year. Even more hit Earth's atmosphere, but they
never make it to the ground; only the strongest are able to survive the
trip. That said, cases of meteorites
causing injury to people are very rare, but it can still happen.
Interestingly, Earth
isn't the only victim of meteorites. An
astronomer even captured video of one hitting the moon.
Though thousands of
meteorites hit Earth annually, the average person has a hard time telling them
apart from rocks. They can also be
extremely difficult to locate, as they move so fast through the sky. In point of fact, a meteor impacting Earth at
37,000 mph is captured on video. That is very fast!
The largest meteorites
have the best chance of surviving the fall to Earth. They may start out quite big as they enter
the atmosphere, but they burn up and lose size along the way; any that actually
make it to the ground are considerably smaller than they were before. So, the bigger the meteor, the better its
chance at becoming a meteorite.
In addition, if they take a more direct route to the ground as opposed to streaking through the sky at a long angle, their chances of survival are increased. This lessens the amount of time they spend burning.
In 1954, the United States recorded its first case of a person being directly injured by a meteorite. Ann Hodges had one crash through the roof of her home in Alabama in November of that year. She emerged from the 8-pound meteorite with a single major cut and a bizarre story to tell. In 2013, Russia was struck by a meteor that was as big as a house.
It blew up 14 miles above the ground. Over 1,600 people were injured by the explosion, which was strong enough to break windows across a 200-square-mile region and damage buildings. However, these are extremely uncommon instances. Earth's atmosphere does a very good job of protecting us by attempting to burn away all meteors that enter it. If that weren't the case, we might be constantly fighting off space rocks instead of taking in spectacular meteor showers like the Perseids, one of many that can be observed throughout the year.
Comments
Post a Comment