Susan Anne Connors, age 10, of Omaha, Neb., for her question:

Do meteors also fall on other planets?

Meteors speed through the vast empty spaces of the Solar System. Once in a while, one hits the earth, lands and becomes a meteorite. These flying bits of gravel, stones and even sizeable boulders also crash onto the moon. Some experts believe that the round craters on the moon were caused by meteorites.

There is no reason to suppose that meteors hit only our little earth and moon. However, the nearest planets are too far away for us to detect meteorite falls. What's more, we cannot see the face of Venus through her dense veil of clouds. This thick atmosphere would tend to cause more meteors to burn before they struck the Venus landscape. So perhaps Venus has fewer meteorites and it could be that Mars and Jupiter have more than we do, for they are closer to the asteroid belt from which many meteors come.