Did you know that meteorites are magnetic?

Dallas, Texas
September 12, 2016 11:28pm CST
I found out recently that falling stars that hit the earth are largely made of iron and thus heavy but so small that only a person equipped with a metal detector will be lucky enough to find one when out hunting for them. More can be read about this from the URL address blow from science.howstuffworks.com below: Another interesting fact is, they use strong magnets attached to sticks that pick up the fallen meteorites. Another thing. They are much bigger before they enter the Earth's atmosphere. How much difference in size is the average meteorite before it hits Earth's atmosphere and begins to burn up in it's rapid descent to the ground? Also, it is first a meteoroid, before it enters Earth's upper atmosphere and if it survives and hits the surface of the ground what remains of that rock from space is then called a meteorite. So, how much mass does a meteoroid lose once it finally hits the Earth's surface? Scientist put it simply that, a meteoroid about the size of a baseball or larger will break up in the atmosphere and if marble sized pieces of it remain, they will likely survive the impact because they have broken up into small enough size that the pieces that are around the size of a marble will fall slower and offer less resistance to the atmosphere and depending on the angle of their descent and such will determine the final size of each fragment, the meteorites will be found after looking around for what remains. Mostly the meteoroids are so small that they are about the size of grains of sand in many cases. Check out this article: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/overview/fastfacts.html
How big is a shooting star? Do they land on earth or do they burn up? Learn how what tiny particles of space dust have to do with meteors.
4 people like this
3 responses
@Happy2BeMe (99399)
• Canada
13 Sep 16
Very interesting. I did knot know. Thank for posting the link I am definitely going to check it out.
1 person likes this
• Dallas, Texas
13 Sep 16
I know you will enjoy reading it.
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• Dallas, Texas
14 Sep 16
@Happy2BeMe I am glad you enjoyed it. Keep it up and you might just get your degree. I think that I have learned more online in just a few years than all my years in public school. lol
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@Happy2BeMe (99399)
• Canada
13 Sep 16
@lookatdesktop I certainly did! Thank you! I am learning all kinds of things on here.
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@jstory07 (134302)
• Roseburg, Oregon
13 Sep 16
There was two that went by the Earth lately and they passed by between the moon and Earth. That was close. I read it online yesterday.
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• Dallas, Texas
13 Sep 16
Wow. How large were they? check this out:
   + View the NASA Portal   Sentry Risk Table The following table lists potential future Earth impact events that the JPL Sentry System has detected based on currently available observations. Click on the object designation to go to a page with full detail
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@jstory07 (134302)
• Roseburg, Oregon
13 Sep 16
@lookatdesktop Not very big but they were not noticed until they were living.
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• Dallas, Texas
13 Sep 16
@jstory07 That is the problem. We won't see them until they are a bit too close for comfort, so to speak.
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@MattMeng (3434)
• Hangzhou, China
14 Sep 16
Thanks for sharing, I think it is also important that which kinds of materials the meteorite is. If the main material of the meteorite is iron, it would be bigger when it come to the surface of the earth, but if the main material of the meteorite is only stone, and it would break up in the air and we can only find small size.
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@MattMeng (3434)
• Hangzhou, China
15 Sep 16
@lookatdesktop You are welcome, Sir. The biggest iron meteorite in the world is about 30tones.
• Dallas, Texas
14 Sep 16
Yes. I agree. Thanks for pointing that out. I should have been more careful when I wrote this post. I appreciate your additional information.
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