BIG QUESTION: How big dose a meteor have to be to survive?

Meteor is probably the most misused term in the English language. It is common for even amateur astronomers to get muddled up. (RBD: Let alone Hollywood!)

Meteor:

A Meteor is actually just the flash of light that happens when an object, such as a meteorite enters the atmosphere.  There sometimes called shooting stars.  Man-made objects (RBD: space junk to put it bluntly) burn up on re-entry they don’t have the same look as the real thing.

Meteoroid           

Any small, solid object in space.  They are normal a part broken from a comet or an asteroid that orbit the sun.  Some rare meteorites are rocks, broken apart from mars and the moon by massive impacts.

Meteorite            

Is any solid object from space that has survived burning up in the atmosphere and has landed on earth. Although very expensive to a collector and sort after for scientific research at least 100 tons of meteoritic material falls to earth every day. Of the meteorites that don't get burnt up in atmosphere:

94% are stony

5% are stone and iron
1% are pure Iron

So, just how big dose a meteor have to be to survive?


Short answer; about as large as a Basket Ball  Long answer; Meteoroids have a pretty big size range from molecule sized to about 330 feet.  Anything larger than this is classed as an asteroid.  The vast majority that the earth encounters is just dust shed by passing comets.

Why would such a tiny speck of matter cause such a large and bright light? That’s down to the speed that they are traveling at, meteoroids enter the atmosphere at blistering speeds,  Up to 162000 Miles per hour, this speed is easy to reach and maintain in space since it’s a vacuum,  the atmosphere of the earth however is literally thick with stuff (RBD: way to be scientific there) this creates friction.  A LOT of friction.  A particle entering the Earth’s atmosphere will hit up to around 3000 degrees centigrade vaporising the meteoroid little by little.  The friction, the same force you make when you rub your hands together when you’re cold, is so immense that it causes the atmosphere and meteoroid to ionize, recombine and this makes the tail.  The tail is usually around a meter wide but the tail, due to the breath taking speed, can be miles in length. 

Most of the 100 tons of material that make it to the ground are particles, tiny speaks of ‘space stuff’ (RBD: put a sheet out in your back garden and wait a while, you’ll pick up a few) that are small enough that they slow down very easily, moving as slowly as one 2.5 centimetres per second through the atmosphere