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Meteorites fall to the surface every day? Researcher: The chance of hitting someone is small

china-meteorite2026-01-14 10:39:42Meteorite News46Source: china meteorite
In the middle of the night, a meteorite hit the side of his head and was "caught" by a pillow. Recently, Grandma Ruth in Canada has become such a lucky person, and her experience has also been on the hot search.
That night, a meteor crossed the night sky of a Canadian province. With a loud "bang", Grandma Ruth was woken up in her sleep, and she found a large black stone on her pillow. Grandma Ruth said afterwards that the "star" that fell from the sky may be hundreds of millions of years old and flew all the way from outer space to her pillow, so she planned to preserve the meteorite.

Where do meteors come from? Is there a high probability that it will fly to Earth and fall to the surface to become a meteorite? Is there radiation in the meteorite you pick up? In this regard, a reporter from Science and Technology Daily interviewed Ping Jinsong, a researcher at the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Data map: China's 26th Antarctic expedition to Grove Mountain team collected 292 meteorites in the Grove Mountain area. Xinhua News Agency

Meteorites fall to the surface every day
"The vast majority of people have never seen a meteorite, but in fact the probability of a meteorite falling to the surface is very high." Ping Jinsong told reporters that some meteors will burn up before they fall to the ground, and some will fall to the ground as meteorites, micrometeorites or interstellar dust.
In April, an international scientific research cooperation organization released data that about 5,200 tons of interstellar dust fall to Earth every year. "It can be said that almost every moment there is interstellar dust falling to the ground." Ping Jinsong added that the research team has collected interstellar dust in Antarctica for 20 years, ranging from 30 microns to 200 microns in diameter.
The true size of micrometeorites is most likely only the size of mung beans. "Micrometeorites range from a few 10 microns to several millimeters, and the number of falling to the ground is smaller than interstellar dust, but it almost always occurs, accounting for the vast majority of the total mass of meteorites." Ping Jinsong said.
Meteorites with a diameter of a few millimeters to hundreds of meters may seem rare, but in fact they fall to the surface every day. Ping Jinsong said that common meteorites include olive iron or iron-nickel meteorites, as well as various rock or rock and soil meteorites, and the "picked" meteorites can be preserved in a dry, room temperature, and away from the magnetic field (magnet) environment to avoid deterioration, and their radiation intensity is lower than that of the ground environment, or even lower than that of freshly renovated reinforced concrete houses.
Interestingly, meteorites almost always "avoid" humans from landing on the surface. Because billions of people on Earth, even if they are outdoors, are insignificant compared to the total surface area of the Earth. Very few people have been directly hit by meteorites, but meteorites smashing roofs and falling into residential courtyards are reported every few years. Even so, the probability of a meteorite hitting a person is much smaller than a direct injury by lightning.
Mainly from comets and asteroid belts
Where do these meteors coming towards Earth come from? The answer is comets, near-Earth asteroids and asteroid belts.
Ping Jinsong explained that the Earth's orbit around the Sun passes through dozens of comets or asteroid remnants belts. The meteoroids in the relic zone are about the same size as grains of sand, weighing less than 1 gram, and when the earth passes through the relic zone, many meteoroids are attracted by the earth's gravity and enter the earth's atmosphere at speeds ranging from 11 kilometers to 72 kilometers per second, becoming meteors.
In addition, there are more than a dozen banded comets that cross the Earth's orbit around the sun. A large number of planetesimals and dust in the comet's banded traces will also be captured by the Earth's gravity and invade the Earth's atmosphere in large quantities, forming meteor showers.
"Therefore, the composition of meteors is mainly dust, ice and ice dust particles in the comet remnants, and the solid particles in the latter two contain volatile substances such as water, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, etc. In addition, there are also meteors that are rock blocks, rock-iron mixtures or iron-nickel metal bodies after the decomposition of rocky asteroids. Ping Jinsong said.
If you want to see meteor showers, you can refer to the meteor shower forecast
Ping Jinsong revealed that meteor showers occur on Earth almost every month, and it is best to see meteors in the evening to early morning on a sunny, non-full moon and away from big cities.
Brilliant meteors in the night sky occur at an altitude of 80-120 kilometers above the surface, and the slowest meteors are 10 times faster than ordinary bullets eject their chambers. Generally speaking, when meteor showers occur, more than ten meteors can be seen per hour in a relatively large area of the sky. There have also been very large meteor showers in history, with hundreds to thousands of meteors visible per hour.
Ping Jinsong said that the occurrence and observation of meteor showers can now be predicted at the best location and the best observation time period, and more accurate forecast information can usually be obtained using the annual meteor shower calendar of the International Astronomical Society or the International Meteor Organization.
Typically, astronomers name meteor showers after the constellations in the celestial region where the meteor radiant is located, and the main meteor shower events corresponding to the next 10-20 years include:
The January Quadrantids have a flow of about 40 meteors per hour, are blue in color, and have a fast speed, about 40 kilometers per second. The Lyrids in April are bright and rapid, about 48 kilometers per second. The Aquariids η meteor shower in May, with a high meteor density and a very stable flow, with a minimum flow of dozens per hour and a maximum flow of hundreds per hour. The Lyrids in June have a low flow, even at their peak, only about 10 per hour. The Aquariids δ meteor shower in July have a peak flow of about 20 meteors per hour, showing a bright yellow color and a moderate velocity, about 40 kilometers per second. The Capriids in July and August have a peak flow of about 15 meteors per hour and a slower speed, only about 25 kilometers per second. The Perseid meteor shower in August has a high flow, with a peak flow of about 60 per hour. The Draconid meteor shower in October has a low flow, with a flow of only about 10 per hour. The Orionid meteor shower in October and November has a flow of about 20 meteors per hour and a fast speed, about 66 kilometers per second. The Leonid meteor shower in November has a flow peak once every 33 years, and the peak flow can reach hundreds of meteors per hour. The Geminid meteor shower in December is the most stable and colorful meteor shower of the year, with a flow of hundreds per hour at its peak. The Ursids in December have a flow of only about 10 meteors per hour and a speed of about 33 kilometers per second.
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