What will be the speed of a meteor? Can you guess it? Leave it, just read this article, it will clear your every doubt regarding the meteor’s speed. What is a meteor? It is a simple streak of light in the sky caused by a meteoroid crashing through Earth’s atmosphere. It is a lump of rock or iron that orbits the sun. The sizes of every meteoroid are different, some are of small size or some of enormous size. Meteoroids are small fragments of rock that are created by asteroid collisions. Now, without taking much time let’s get started and know the speed of a meteor.
What Is The Speed Of A Meteor?
The speed of a meteor is about 71 kilometres per second which means 44 miles per second. The faster and larger the meteor, the brighter and longer it may glow. The small meteors only glow for about a second while larger and faster meteors can be visible for up to several minutes.
Now, the question is what is the average speed of a meteor? So, the average speed of a meteor is around 160,000 MPH, according to the American Meteor Society. The speed of a meteor in atmosphere depends upon the size of the meteor.
As Meteor is propagating in interplanetary space near Earth, their velocities relative to Earth’s range from a few kilometers per second up to as high as 72 km per second. As meteors come close to the planet, they are accelerated to yet higher velocities by Earth’s gravitational field.
The least velocity with which a meteor can enter the atmosphere is equal to Earth’s escape velocity of 11.2 km per second. The top speed of a meteor is around 64,000 mph.
Well, you have an idea of the speed of a meteor in space as well as in the atmosphere. Let’s have a look at the calculation of the meteor speed.
Calculate The Speed Of A Meteor
So, calculating the speed of a meteor is not easy because they vanish in a few seconds and also you don’t know when they will come. Their unexpected behaviour makes it very difficult to measure the speed of a meteor. Therefore, for a common student or person, it is very complex to calculate the speed of a meteor. Instead of calculating the speed of a meteor, you can use the formula that already has been defined by scientists. So, th formula is,
KE = (½) x mv2
v2 = (KE/m) x 2
v = 2(KE/m)
Where,
KE is the kinetic energy stored in the meteor
v is the total mass or weight of the meteor
Here is an example, to make you clear about this formula.
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A meteor with a mass of 1.4 x 1020 kilograms and kinetic energy of 2.8 x 1020 joules. Then what will be the speed of the meteor?
By using a formula,
v = 2(KE/m)
v = 2(2.8 /1.4) x 1010
v = 20 km/sec
This is the speed of a meteor.
About Meteor
Meteors and meteorites are two different things. When meteoroids enter Earth’s atmosphere or any other planet’s atmosphere at high speed and hurn up, the fireball meteor or shooting stars are called meteors. While, when a meteoroid survives a trip through the atmosphere and hits the ground, it is called a meteoroid.
There are some characteristics or meteorite and they are, meteorites have properties like density which makes them different from other rocks. They are usually quite heavy for their size, since they contain metallic iron and denser minerals. They are magnetic in nature.
You should know about what causes a meteor and what are meteors made of. So, meteors are caused by a meteoroid crashing through Earth’s atmosphere and they are made of iron-nickel metal with small amounts of sulphide and carbide minerals.
How is the appearance of meteorite? So, they may resemble Earth, but they usually have a burned exterior that can appear shiny.
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FAQ
What Is The Fastest Meteor Speed?
The fastest speed at which humans have travelled is 39,937.7 km/h (24,816.1 mph). The command module of Apollo 10, carrying Col.
Are Meteors Faster Than Light?
“Meteors typically travel near 0.01% of the speed of light,” said Siraj. “Therefore current searches are tuned to find signals from objects moving at that speed.
How Fast Do Meteors Travel In Mph?
They enter Earth’s atmosphere (and are then called meteors) at roughly 133,200 mph (60 kilometers per second) relative to the planet.
Why Is It So Rare To Be Hit By A Meteorite?
As meteorites can be very small in size, and there is only 5% of meteor’s that make it to the earth’s ground the chances are incredibly low to be hit by one. According to Lottoland ‘s data, it is estimated that the chance of being hit by a meteor is one in 840,000,000.
Can A Meteorite Hit A Plane?
There are no documented instances of a meteorite striking an airplane, nor has the Federal Bureau of Investigation released any official statement on the likely effects of such an impact, either in general or in the case of Flight 800.
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How Fast Do Meteors Hit Earth?
Most meteorites impact the Earth at between 200 to 400 miles per hour (90 to 180 m/s). Larger objects, such as asteroids (over 1m, 3.3 ft in diameter) can impact the Earth at well over 1.5 miles per second (2.4 km/s), over 1,000 times the speed of most meteorites.
What Is The Deadliest Meteor That Hit Earth?
The Chicxulub Event
65 million years ago an asteroid roughly 10 to 15 kilometers (6 to 9 miles) in diameter hit Earth in what is now Mexico. The impact killed 70% of all species on Earth, including the dinosaurs.
How Big Was The Meteor That Killed The Dinosaurs?
When the 6-mile-wide asteroid that led to dinosaur extinction hit Earth 66 million years ago, the impact also triggered a “mega-earthquake” that lasted weeks to months, new evidence suggests.
Conclusion
Here you are after knowing about the speed of the meteor in detail. At deeper levels in the atmosphere, a shock wave may develop in the air ahead of the meteorite. And this shock wave interacts with the solid meteoroid and its vapour in a simple way, and it can travel all the way to the ground even when the meteoroid does not. Now, you know all about the speed of a meteor.
How fast is meteor speed