Name: Jessica A Byrne and Stacy Wheelock
Status: Other
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Question:
Would meteors ever hit the Earth?
Replies:
YES! Meteors enter the Earth's atmosphere all the time: most are so small
that they burn-up in the atmosphere; if they are large enough to survive and
hit the ground, they become "meteorites."
A little history (in chronological order):
1) 65 million years ago: one theory scientists use to explain the extinc-
tion of the dinosaurs is a large meteor, asteroid, or comet hitting the
Earth. Evidence for the crater such an impact would have left has recently
been found in the Yucatan Peninsula area.
2) a few tens of thousands of years ago: Meteor Crater was formed in
Arizona. It is about one kilometer wide. I recently saw a similar but
older crater in the Altiplano of Bolivia.
3) early this century: a huge fireball hit a remote region of Siberia.
Fun fact: the Earth gains about a million kilograms of mass per day from
meteors!
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