Fun Fact 2: Meteoroids are fragments and particles that have been caused
by collisions
Fun Fact 3: Meteoroids vary in size, they can be a small as a grain of
sand or as big as a small car!
Fun Fact 4: When meteoroids hit earth's atmosphere they burn become
meteors or shooting stars
Fun Fact 5: Chunks of meteoroids that do not burn on Earth's atmosphere
sometimes fall to Earth, these are called meteorites
Fun Fact 6: The easy to remember differences between meteoroids, meteors
and meteorites is: meteoroids are in space, meteors are in Earths
atmosphere and meteorites are found on ground
Fun Fact 7: Meteorites sometimes land on other planets, moons and
asteroids the impact causes craters and they can be very damaging
Fun Fact 8: Meteoroids often cause damage to satellites, space craft and
space probs too
Fun Fact 9: Meteors are caused by the friction of air particles and
pressure as a meteoroid enters Earths atmosphere. Heat is generated
which begins to glow, as the meteoroid melts away it leaves a trail of
light and this is called a meteor
Fun Fact 10: When a meteoroid enters Earth’s atmosphere, it can be
travelling up to 130,000 mph
Fun Fact 11: The length of the light trail depends on the meteoroids
elements and dimension; the trail can last a few seconds to 30 minutes
Fun Fact 12: Meteoroid debris lands on Earth every day! However it
usually lands in the sea; over 70% of planet earth is covered by water
Fun Fact 13: The largest Meteorite found on Earth was discovered in
Namibia, Africa in 1920. Named Hoba the meteorite measures 2.7m wide,
2.7m deep, 0.9 m high and weighs 60 tonnes!
Fun Fact 14: When a meteoroid measures greater than 10 metres in
diameter it is called an asteroid
Fun Fact 15: Why did Dinosaurs become extinct? Most scientists accept
the theory that a colossal asteroid crashed into earth 65 million years
ago causing devastating changes to the climate. Dinosaurs could not
adapt and were eventually wiped out |
