No, I can categorically say that no meteor has ever hit the Earth, and none ever will. I’m sort of kidding. Meteors are more commonly known as shooting stars, they are the bright trails of hot gas left behind when a grain of sand (or sometimes a larger rock) enters our atmosphere at high speed. This is the definition of a meteor. If the object causing the meteor is large enough, it will not all burn up and some of it will reach the ground. When this happens, we call the bit that hits the ground a meteorite. So, meteors occur in the upper atmosphere. Big objects that cause bright meteors can also hit the ground as meteorites. Also, when these objects are still in space, before they hit our atmosphere, they are called meteoroids. Now, meteorites hit the ground all the time. It is estimated that approximately 100,000 tonne of meteorite material hits the ground each year, mostly in the form of very tiny particles. The average bright meteor is due to objects about the size of a grain of sand. Large meteorites are rare in comparison, but fall quite regularly. Very large meteorites can have catastrophic effects, such as thought to occur with the mass extinction of the dinosaurs (due to climate change caused by a large meteorite impact). So, we cannot predict when meteorites will fall. Undoubtedly, some decent size meteorites will hit the Earth somewhere in 2012 but we do not know where. Finally, a huge amount of effort goes into tracking very large objects that have orbits near the Earth (Near Earth Objects), as these carry a risk of catastrophic impacts. But as of now, no significant impacts are predicted. History tells us they are extremely rare – it will happen eventually, but is likely a long time off, maybe tens of millions of years.
No, I can categorically say that no meteor has ever hit the Earth, and none ever will. I’m sort of kidding. Meteors are more commonly known as shooting stars, they are the bright trails of hot gas left behind when a grain of sand (or sometimes a larger rock) enters our atmosphere at high speed. This is the definition of a meteor. If the object causing the meteor is large enough, it will not all burn up and some of it will reach the ground. When this happens, we call the bit that hits the ground a meteorite. So, meteors occur in the upper atmosphere. Big objects that cause bright meteors can also hit the ground as meteorites. Also, when these objects are still in space, before they hit our atmosphere, they are called meteoroids. Now, meteorites hit the ground all the time. It is estimated that approximately 100,000 tonne of meteorite material hits the ground each year, mostly in the form of very tiny particles. The average bright meteor is due to objects about the size of a grain of sand. Large meteorites are rare in comparison, but fall quite regularly. Very large meteorites can have catastrophic effects, such as thought to occur with the mass extinction of the dinosaurs (due to climate change caused by a large meteorite impact). So, we cannot predict when meteorites will fall. Undoubtedly, some decent size meteorites will hit the Earth somewhere in 2012 but we do not know where. Finally, a huge amount of effort goes into tracking very large objects that have orbits near the Earth (Near Earth Objects), as these carry a risk of catastrophic impacts. But as of now, no significant impacts are predicted. History tells us they are extremely rare – it will happen eventually, but is likely a long time off, maybe tens of millions of years.
0