Questions tagged [meteoroid]

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6 votes
2 answers
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Meteors arriving to a planet's atmosphere?

Imagine a planet with little or no wind activity or precipitation, but that still has an atmosphere. When a meteoroid reaches the atmosphere and burns, it converts into dust and gas. Does this gas and ...
vengaq's user avatar
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3 votes
4 answers
5k views

Which kind of celestial body killed dinosaurs?

Well, the internet lies a lot, so there's so much information mixed with misinformation... Some sources call what killed the dinosaurs an asteroid and others a meteor. Is there any consensus on this? ...
kokbira's user avatar
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6 votes
2 answers
2k views

If two asteroids will collide, how can we call it?

If a smaller celestial body collides with a larger celestial body, but neither is classified as a planet, what do we call the smaller celestial body that collided with the larger one? Asteroid/...
kokbira's user avatar
  • 229
7 votes
1 answer
230 views

How are the occurrence and nature of micrometeoroid impacts on JWST optics identified?

There are been recent news about a larger-than-expected micrometeoroid impact on the James Webb Space Telescope's optics. Apparently this was one of several impacts that have already been observed. ...
Roger Wood's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
58 views

Meteroids escaping the system

So the sun or any star has a certain gravitational pull. Technically the gravity extends infinitely only it will just become really small. If there is a meteroid around a star how do I calculate when ...
programmingWolf's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
102 views

do meteroid impacts occur evenly across the entire moon surface?

Since the moon is tidally locked and has the same face showing to the earth, I would expect that the earth's shadow represents an area on the moon that would be spared some meteoroid impacts. Does the ...
aquagremlin's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
52 views

Have any meteoroids been detected before they reached the Earth's atmosphere?

Once a meteoroid starts burning up in the atmosphere, it becomes a visible meteor. Have any meteoroids been detected before they started to burn in the atmosphere? If yes, what is the ballpark ...
usernumber's user avatar
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24 votes
1 answer
2k views

How long between the moment a meteor is first visible and the moment a meteorite hits the ground?

A meteor is usually only visible for a couple seconds at most, but I would guess that it usually stops being visible high above the ground. Meteors often don't make it to the ground as they completely ...
usernumber's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
56 views

Could life forms have travelled between the Earth and Mars on meteoroids?

Mars meteorites have been found on Earth, and there likely are Earth meteorites that have crashed on Mars. If you take any random piece of rock from the surface of Earth, the odds are there will be ...
usernumber's user avatar
  • 17.4k
2 votes
1 answer
201 views

Did I see a meteor(oid) or space debris or something else?

About three years ago I think, at night I've seen something enter the atmosphere in a glowing bright fireball. But I think it wasn't the fire from burning up, but because of ionization (what also ...
Giovanni's user avatar
  • 207
2 votes
1 answer
120 views

Incidence angles of meteoroids

I've been reading the book Planetary Geology. In chapter 7, section 7.6, the author states that The angle of incidence at which asteroids or comets encounter the surface of a planetary body follows a ...
usernumber's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
74 views

How to check what telescopes were looking at a certain portion of sky at a particular time?

I have some data that I collected from observations at a specific RA, DEC and I am trying to figure out what telescope surveys were looking at that portion of the sky at that particular time? I am ...
Patrick's user avatar
  • 528
22 votes
2 answers
3k views

What is the name of meteoroids which hit Moon, Mars, or pretty much anything that isn’t the Earth?

A meteorite according to the Oxford English Dictionary is A piece of rock or metal that has fallen to the earth's surface from outer space as a meteor. But, meteors impact other planets. Are they ...
EDL's user avatar
  • 323
2 votes
0 answers
58 views

Was NASA's 2007 attempt to see helions during a solar eclipse successful? What instruments were used?

This answer about Sun-grazing comets led me eventually to Wikipedia's Helion (meteoroid), which has a one-sentence long article: A Helion meteoroid is a meteoroid that arrives from the approximate ...
uhoh's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
185 views

Meteor shower from Moon's "debris"

Did we ever witness a "meteor shower" which was actually dust or debris of some kind from our own Moon?
errata's user avatar
  • 143
4 votes
1 answer
242 views

If Earth had no atmosphere, how many people would be killed by meteors every year? [closed]

Suppose those people engage in similar activity, walking on surface etc.
Anixx's user avatar
  • 1,255
2 votes
0 answers
134 views

What is the average Ni-Fe crystal length in iron meteorites?

Iron-core meteorites display an awesome criss-cross pattern known as the Widmanstätten pattern, shown below: (photo by Dr. Patrick M. Len, taken from Wikipedia) I TA for an intro-level astronomy/...
jvriesem's user avatar
  • 652
10 votes
1 answer
2k views

What factors influence the Widmanstätten pattern in iron meteorites?

The cores of iron meteorites exhibit beautiful Widmanstätten patterns, as shown below in the Alvord meteorite (photo by Jim H): I understand these patterns form when the molten nickel-iron core of ...
jvriesem's user avatar
  • 652
3 votes
1 answer
146 views

Are exo-meteoroids possible?

Is it possible that meteoroids, comets, asteroids or other small bodies from around a nearby star (such as Alpha Centauri) could get into the solar system? How low is that possibility? Edit: ...
Chris X's user avatar
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