Display of the survival of meteoroid with air permeability κ/κ0 = 0.25, until its breakup at an altitude of 32 km.
Our atmosphere is a better shield from meteoroids than researchers thought. When a meteor comes hurtling toward Earth, the high-pressure air in front of it seeps into its pores and cracks, pushing the body of the meteor apart and causing it to explode. “There’s a big gradient between high-pressure air in front of the meteor and the vacuum of air behind it,” said Jay Melosh, a professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University and co-author of the paper. “If the air can move through the passages in the meteorite, it can easily get inside and blow off pieces.”
Researchers knew that meteoroids often blew up before they reach Earth’s surface, but they di...
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