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The amount of space rock that naturally falls onto the Earth and reaches the ground is measured in tons per day.
by Arnavion 6y ago
The amount of space rock that naturally falls onto the Earth and reaches the ground is measured in tons per day.
- EE84M3i 6y agoReally? That's just the ground? Is it mostly a few bigger ones? I guess 1 ton of rock isn't that much, but this is still a pretty surprising fact.
- Arnavion 6y agoJust to be clear, I don't mean "reaches the ground as opposed to falling in the oceans", I mean "reaches the ground as opposed to burning up in the atmosphere". If we include the space rock that burns up in the atmosphere that amount is measured in the hundreds or thousands of tons per day. There's a lot of rock in space, and the Earth is a big target. Tons per day is not a lot when compared to the surface area available for it to land on.
- kzrdude 6y agoYes but that is disinfected by heat, these rocks were shielded
- Arnavion 6y agoThe heat ablates the outer layers, and depending on the composition of the rock it might not be a good conductor of heat, so the heat doesn't necessarily make its way throughout the rock before the hot outer layer ablates away. The rocks that land can sometimes be cold enough that they build up frost on themselves, because they've retained their low temperature from space and started condensing moisture from the atmosphere.