International Asteroid Day marks the anniversary of the fall of the Tunguska meteorite in 1908. Although scientific debates continue about whether it fell or not, it is known that cosmic bodies regularly collide with the Earth. Evgeny Burmistrov, astronomy teacher and deputy director of the PNRPU Polytechnic School, explains the differences between asteroids, meteors and comets, their behavior in the atmosphere and on the planet’s surface.
Asteroids are large, irregularly shaped cosmic objects that orbit between Mars and Jupiter. This region, called the main asteroid belt, is home to more than 100,000 of these objects that rarely hit Earth. Comets are similar to asteroids, but because their orbits are long, they can travel far from the Sun. Meteoroids are small objects, up to 30 meters in diameter, that can reach the Earth’s surface without completely burning up in the atmosphere.
Meteors, unlike meteors, burn up in the atmosphere due to friction with the air. According to Burmistrov, in order for a meteorite to reach the Earth, it must have a high speed, angle of entry and mass. However, most meteors are too small to overcome air resistance and create a crater on the planet’s surface. The PNRPU teacher gives examples of the largest craters formed as a result of asteroid impacts, such as Popigai in Siberia and Chicxulub in Mexico.
About 21.3 tons of meteorite material falls to Earth each year, but only a small fraction of it is recorded. Large meteorites, such as Sudbury in Canada and Vredefort in South Africa, can leave craters. Scientists suggest that some of the largest craters lie beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. Most meteorites are made of rock, iron, or a mixture of both, and sometimes contain rare elements. Burmistrov also notes that some meteorites can contain traces of extraterrestrial life, such as ribose and other sugars, making them particularly interesting to science.
Source: Ferra
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