Space is an endless dark void. There are countless celestial bodies existing in this vacuum. Who knows when these celestial bodies break up due to the collisions they experience and scatter smaller pieces around. Some of these pieces begin to orbit the Sun and rotate, and when the time comes, some of them break off and come to our Earth. Those that enter the Earth’s atmosphere and sometimes fall to the earth from these pieces are called meteorites.
As people living on earth, we are not aware of it, but meteorites are constantly coming to our world. Thanks to the planet’s atmosphere, most of them are destroyed by burning. Some may fall to the ground. Even if they do not fall to the earth, we can see them with the naked eye because they emit a very bright light when burning. Let’s take a closer look at what a meteorite is and see interesting information about meteorites.
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What is a meteorite?
Although we call it meteorite in Turkish, the English name of these objects is meteor. The word meteor is of Greek origin and means the thing above. In its basic definition, meteorites are space rocks and meteoroids that enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Like many celestial events, the entry of meteorites into the Earth’s atmosphere can be observed with the naked eye.
Meteorite events often occur at an altitude of 50 – 80 kilometers from the earth. It has been observed that the fastest meteorites reach 71 kilometers per second. Every day, 50 metric tons of meteorites fall on our Earth, but most are the size of pebbles. This is because of the atmosphere. Most of the meteorites begin to burn and disappear as soon as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
Even if a large part of the meteorites that enter the Earth’s atmosphere are destroyed by burning, some of them survive this process by shrinking and succeed in descending to the earth. However, the burning they experience is so intense that no matter how big they are, a very small part of them often falls to the earth. Therefore, it is possible to find a meteorite while walking on the road, but not every interesting stone may be a meteorite.
Interesting information about meteorites:
- When meteorites come in densely, they can create a meteor shower.
- Meteorites can occur due to many different reasons.
- A celestial body is not called a meteorite unless it reaches the ground.
- Meteor showers are named after the constellations in which they are found.
- Meteorites are old, they can be very old.
- During the burning of meteorites, very different colors can appear.
- A meteorite called the Fireball is even brighter than the planet Venus.
- On some nights, tens of thousands of meteorites can be seen.
- The International Space Station is protected against meteorites.
When meteorites come in densely, they can create a meteor shower:
In fact, most of the time the meteorite fall event is called meteor shower. Because the objects that come towards our Earth after being separated from another celestial body in some way, are found in more than one piece and enter the atmosphere in this way. The event formed by multiple meteorites entering the Earth’s atmosphere one after the other is called meteor shower. Of course, we all know how enjoyable it is to watch.
Meteorites can occur for many different reasons:
Meteorites are fragments of a celestial body that enter the Earth’s atmosphere. So it’s a remnant of debris. This debris could have formed from a comet, asteroid, meteoroid, or who knows when it broke off from a planet. They can also turn into a meteorite as a single large mass, they can disperse as a result of collisions and similar events in space and turn into many different and small pieces of meteorite.
A celestial body is not called a meteorite unless it reaches the ground:
In popular science articles or news, celestial objects that hit the Earth, enter the Earth’s atmosphere and even pass near our Earth are called meteorites. However, when we come to the terminological part of the work, not all of them are meteorites. NASA calls the celestial bodies that can only pass through the Earth’s atmosphere and reach the earth’s surface as meteorites. Other cases are named according to the nature of the object and the event.
Meteor showers are named after the constellations in which they are found:
Meteor showers are generally experienced within an hour and several different meteorites are seen. Objects that cause this are often remnants of debris from comets. That’s why meteor showers are named after the constellation in which the comet from which they ruptured is located. The Leonid meteor shower comes from Comet Tempel-Tuttle in the constellation Leo. Many meteor showers such as Perseids, Orionids and Geminids occur regularly every year. The Leonid meteor shower occurs in November each year.
Meteorites are old, they can be very old:
Meteorite falls, especially meteor showers, are very common. According to experts, more than 30 meteor showers occur each year. These remnants of debris do not come off yesterday. Most of them are over 100 years old. The meteor shower, called Perseid, occurs every year in August. This situation, which was seen for the first time 2000 years ago, is recorded in Chinese annals. In other words, meteor showers have a history of thousands of years.
During the burning of meteorites, many different colors can appear:
Remains of debris from celestial bodies begin to burn as soon as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere. If you say that what you call burning is red, you are wrong. Because, depending on the composition of the meteorite, many different colors can emerge. For example, a meteorite with a high iron content may glow yellow, while a meteorite with a high calcium content may glow purple.
An asteroid called the Fireball is even brighter than the planet Venus:
Fireball is actually a type of meteorite, not a single meteorite. Their size generally ranges from a basketball to a car. They are much longer lasting and brighter than the meteorites we know. The International Astronomical Union says this type of asteroid is even brighter than an extremely bright planet like Venus. The most famous Fireball is the Great Daylight Fireball, which was seen in 1972 in the US state of Utah as it passed at 15 kilometers per second.
On some nights, tens of thousands of meteorites can be seen:
If you sit in front of the sky radar in NASA or a similar organization, you will be shocked. Because, apart from what is seen, there is a constant meteorite fall on our world. In the measurement made by such a radar on a standard night, it was seen that there were about 12 thousand meteorites. Most of them manage to land on the earth somehow, even if they are as dust.
The International Space Station is protected against meteorites:
As it turns out, such debris in space is constantly spinning and crashing into places. The atmosphere protects our world, but if you ask how the International Space Station is protected, the answer is hidden in its special shield. Although not like the power shields we see in science fiction movies, the International Space Station has a shield around it, and this shield provides protection against all meteorites up to 3 cm in diameter.
We talked about interesting information about meteorites by answering the question of what are tens of thousands of meteorites that enter our world every day. Of course, we tried to avoid a lot of technical terms for clarity. For more detailed information about meteorites, you can visit the official websites of NASA and other similar organizations.
If you want to read our other content about space:
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