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Why do Meteorites Strike the Earth?
On a hot summer afternoon, I sat down with my elder brother to play carom. I took the first strike and pocketed two coins. Then I did a little war dance. Wow! Suddenly dada (Bengali for elder brother) had an idea. “How would it be if a fast-travelling object hit the earth? Quite like the way the striker hit the coins.” I was amused. “How is it possible? The earth is so huge. Anyway there aren’t any strikers flying around in the solar system?...
The Earth takes a Battering
During its life span, our planet has suffered the impact of close to 30 small planets, up to 10 miles in diameter and travelling 60 times the speed of sound. Each such impact releases about a thousand times as much energy as would be released if all the nuclear powers exploded all their present weapon stocks. About 5,000 giant meteorities with diameters of more than a kilometre have hit the Earth over the past 600 million years, with an average strike rate of one per 120,000 years....
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