Jenzy Leavitt, age 9, of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, for her question:

What happens when a meteor hits the earth?

Sometimes we observe,  a bright shower of falling meteors. Many people stay up very late or got up very early to see the show. Thousands of starry sparks arched down from one part of the sky. And, naturally, we all wondered what would happen if all those blazing meteors hit the ground.
Most falling meteors flash on and off in a moment. They swoop down and seem to disappear high in the sky. But the fiery sparks really do not disappear altogether. As each little blaze burns out, it leaves a tiny pinch of ashes. And the powdery ashes drift down, slowly down to the ground. We see only a few of these flashy little meteors. But the experts say that about a million of them fall down from the sky every hour, day and night. Each tiny meteor is about as big as a pinhead and it takes 10,000 of them to weigh one ounce. But the ashes from billions of them add tons of weight to the old earth.
Some meteors are bigger    gravel sized, pebble sized and even big boulder sized. But only a few of these space travelers fall down from the sky. Some of them are too big to burn away to ashes in the air and they come tumbling down like falling stones. They are scorching hot when they strike the ground and remain warm for some while after they land.
Once in hundreds of years, a big boulder sized meteor hits the earth. It comes hurtling down with a rushing roar. Its flaming blaze lights up the sky. Maybe pieces break off when it is still high above the ground and flaming balls of fire shoot off in all directions. The giant meteor hits with a mighty bang that can be heard for miles and it smashes a huge hole in the ground. Ages ago, a giant meteor fell in Arizona and made a hole more than a mile wide. The hole is called a meteor crater.
Meteors are space travelers from afar. Billions and billions of them are traveling in the wide spaces between the planets. As the earth rolls on its way around the sun, it collides with millions of these meteors. Most of them burn to ashes high in the air. A few of the bigger ones land on the ground or plop into the sea. Their space traveling days are done forever. When a solid meteor hits the ground it belongs to the earth and we give it a new name. We call it a "meteorite," a name that means meteor stone.
Meteors are members of the Solar System. Experts think that they are scraps of material that were left over when the planets were created. For ages they are cold, dark space travelers wandering among the planets. When one of them collides with :bur bulky planet, it is pulled down by the force of gravity. The dashing smash through the air makes it heat up and blaze. A tiny meteor burns to ashes 40 miles above the ground. A bigger meteor burns only its crust on the way down. It lands on the earth and becomes a meteorite.