What are your chances of being hit by a meteorite, meteoroid, or a meteor?
Hiding in your house won't help!
Meteoroid.
None, unless you’re an astronaut. Meteoroids are like asteroids only smaller. They are solid objects found in space that are anywhere from the size of a grain of sand to a boulder about 10 meters (30 feet) across. In most cases they are simply pieces off an asteroid or a comet.
Meteor
No chance. Meteors are also called “shooting” or “falling” stars but aren’t stars. In fact, they aren’t objects at all. A meteor is the streak of light seen when a falling object heats up and starts to burn because of friction with the atmosphere.
Some define a meteor as a meteoroid that entered the atmosphere but hasn't landed on earth yet. Using that definition, you could be struck by a meteor while in a some sort of aircraft. There's never been a confirmed case this happening. The odds of you being struck this way are incredibly small.
Meteorite
Extremely small chance. Meteorites are the parts of meteoroids that actually make it through the atmosphere and strike the earth. There have only been four documented cases of people being struck by meteorites since 1927. None of the strikes were fatal.
One case
In 1954 a woman in Alabama was struck in the hip by a meteorite after it came through her ceiling and struck her radio. She wasn’t seriously injured but it shows you that you can’t even hide from meteorites inside your house. Fortunately there’s almost no chance of being struck by one so, go out and look for meteors tonight.
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This Q&A by Brent Mitchell
Brent's dream was to grow-up and be a scientist. While the growing up part is debatable, he was a clinical researcher for...
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Comments (1)
Well, my husband and I are amongst the FEW who have been hit by a falling star. We were driving one night and we both noticed a HUGE falling star, it seemed to be coming towards us at a perfect angle and then became obvious that it was..definently directing falling in our same path. I began to panic a little, grabbed his arm and said "Jesus, baby..its gonna hit us, he was freaked as well and I said it again as it came closer, it was very bright and glowing, but not red in color, looked more like a silver sparkler, it seemed to glow... I gripped him tighter and then...."tink"...right on the drivers side window , and that was that...sure did feel lucky to be alive and just as happy knowing we were actually hit by a falling star....no reason to tell Tall Tales, dont care who believes me or not..just thought I would share our experience with you!