Meteor Dangers : 10 Tonne Hit Us Every Year

Aerospace engineer Dr. Robert Zubrin commented on NASA’s falling satellite and other space objects that could strike our planet. According to Zubrin, 10 tons of meteors hit the Earth every year and to date there has been only one recorded casualty—a dog in Egypt in 1911. We don’t have to worry about satellites coming down on us, he said, noting that the greater danger is near Earth asteroids. A fairly sizeable one impacts the planet about once a century, he added. Zubrin also briefly talked about the increased activity of the Sun and the minor inconveniences (communication disruptions, power blackouts) we can expect over the next few years because of it.

Biography:

Robert Zubrin holds Master degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics and a doctorate in Nuclear Engineering. He is the inventor of several unique concepts for space propulsion and exploration. He has authored over 100 published technical and non-technical papers in the field, as well as written several books. As an engineer at Lockheed-Martin, he co-developed the “Mars Direct” plan for affordable manned Mars Missions. Robert is now president of his own space R&D Company called Pioneer Astronautics. Most recently, he founded the Mars Society; an international organization dedicated to furthering the exploration and settlement of Mars by both public and private means. Prior to his work in astronautics, Dr. Zubrin was employed in areas of thermonuclear fusion research, nuclear engineering, radiation protection, and as a high school science teacher.

A meteoroid is a sand- to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar System. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth’s (or another body’s) atmosphere is called a meteor, or colloquially a shooting star or falling star. If a meteoroid reaches the ground and survives impact, then it is called a meteorite. Many meteors appearing seconds or minutes apart are called a meteor shower. The root word meteor comes from the Greek meteōros, meaning “high in the air”.

Around 15,000 tonnes of meteoroids, space dust, and debris of different types enters Earth’s atmosphere each year.

A meteor is the visible path of a meteoroid that has entered the Earth’s atmosphere. Meteors typically occur in the mesosphere, and most range in altitude from 76 km to 100 km. (46-62 miles) Millions of meteors occur in the Earth’s atmosphere every day. Most meteoroids that cause meteors are about the size of a pebble.

The velocities of meteors result from the movement of the Earth around the Sun at about 30 km/s (18.5 miles per second), the orbital speeds of meteoroids, and the gravitational attraction of the Earth.