Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Are Meteors Hot After Hitting Earth?

If you watch movies and TV shows you come to the conclusion that meteors flying through Earth's atmosphere become very hot and once they hit (and become meteorites) they are smoking hot to the touch!  Unfortunately this is very far from the truth.  The asteroid that became the meteor that became the meteorite has been in space (very cold conditions) for millions, if not billions of years!  These are very cold objects, all the way down to the center!  Yes, they flare up and can look like fireballs in the sky and can leave a trail of "smoke" through our atmosphere, but this is only heating the surface of the rock.  The time spent flying through our atmosphere before striking the surface of Earth is VERY short.  The time is much too short to raise the temperature of the object.  The final result?  To the touch, meteorites are the exact opposite of smoking hot.  They are freezing cold!

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