How do asteroids, meteors and comets disappear?
I recently read in the paper about asteroids, comets and meteors disappearing. Do you have any thoughts on the cause of the disappearances? Yours is a very interesting question, I’ll try to reply as briefly as possible. The mechanisms by which asteroids, comets and meteors disappear are different, so my reply would be in three parts. Meteors When we talk about meteors, we talk about small objects (usually less than 1 m in diameter) that are captured by the gravitational attraction of the Earth and fall into its atmosphere. The meteor itself is the luminous tail that is left behind the infalling object (meteoroid) and that is due to the ionization of the air and by the subsequent recombination ofthe ions. Most of the meteors actually disappear, since they are consumed by the attrition with the air. Some of the largest objects, however, manage to arrive to the ground. We call these objects meteorites. To summarize, most of the meteors actually disappear due to the attrition with the Eart
I recently read in the paper about asteroids, comets and meteors disappearing. Do you have any thoughts on the cause of the disappearances? Yours is a very interesting question, I’ll try to reply as briefly as possible. The mechanisms by which asteroids, comets and meteors disappear are different, so my reply would be in three parts. Meteors When we talk about meteors, we talk about small objects (usually less than 1 m in diameter) that are captured by the gravitational attraction of the Earth and fall into its atmosphere. The meteor itself is the luminous tail that is left behind the infalling object (meteoroid) and that is due to the ionization of the air and by the subsequent recombination ofthe ions. Most of the meteors actually disappear, since they are consumed by the attrition with the air. Some of the largest objects, however, manage to arrive to the ground. We call these objects meteorites. To summarize, most of the meteors actually disappear due to the attrition with the Eart
