Jack Glazier, age 13, of Indianapolis, for his question:
Why does a meteor burn in the atmosphere?
If a sputnik plummets to the earth, it will catch fire and burn with a molten glow. The same thing happens to a meteor, which may be a grain of dust or a small pebble. These falling bodies are in a tearing hurry to land on the earths at their own speed plus the pull of gravity bring them racing down through the air.
It burning meteor is distantly related to a striking match. The match ignites when stroked against a rough emery board. This causes friction. And friction generates heat. The chemicals of the match head have a very low kindling point. The friction from striking a rough surface is enough to warm and ignite them. The falling meteor also strikes a bumpy surface. It tears through our atmosphere, and our atmosphere is made of bumping little molecules of gas.
Out in the space between the planets there is no air. A meteor whizzes along with nothing to hamper its speed. It travels fast. The earth races around her orbit at the staggering speed of over 18 miles a second. The speed of an average meteor is estimated to be 30 miles a second. Many meteors travel two or three times faster than the speeding earth.
The meteors we see as so‑called shooting stars are in a traffic accident. In their wanderings they came too close to the earth, felt the pull of gravity and crashed. Billions of meteors no bigger than pinheads collide with the earth every day. A few pebble‑sized meteors also crash every day. Once in countless ages a big, boulder‑sized meteor crashes to earth.
A little shooting‑star meteor crashes first into the thin air at the top of the atmosphere. For the first time in its existence it must travel through molecules of gas. About 65 miles up the meteor gets into real trouble. The air is thicker. It crashes into countless molecules every second. This causes the friction.
Fragments arcs torn from the air molecules and fragments are torn from the meteor. Friction warms, teen heats the meteor. It begins to glow, then burn. The torn fragments stream out behind in a glowing trail. The shooting star we see is really the glowing trail behind a burning meteor.
As the speeding meteor falls, the air gets thicker, the friction and the heat got more intense. The small speck of matter burns away. The shooting star disappears, about 45 miles above ground. It has turned to ashy dust which will filter down to the ground. It is estimated that five tons of this meteor dust is added to the earth every day.
The newest detective work on meteors is done with radio. This equipment records meteors as echoes and whistle sounds. The newest evidence suggests that meteors do not come from outer space. They are all part of the Solar System. They drift through space between the planets. In some regions they are like clouds of flying gravel.
A 50 pound meteor or a sputnik is too large to burn up entirely on the way down. Its outer shell is burned, but there is enough material loft to drop onto the ground with a thud or into the sea with a splash.