More from the Magazine
November
2003 Issue- News Scan Healing the Grid
- News Scan Light Sails to Orbit
- Voyages Waiting for Liftoff
- Buy the Digital Edition
On an average night, more than 100 million pieces of interplanetary debris enter Earth's atmosphere. Luckily, most of these bits of asteroids and comets are no bigger than small pebbles; the total weight of the 100 million objects is only a few tons. And our planet's atmosphere is thick enough to vaporize the vast majority of these intruders.
So the debris usually streaks harmlessly overhead, leaving the bright trails popularly known as shooting stars.
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