Good points on the production and destruction rates.
Do we know how many meteoroids crash into the Sun or other planets? The
moon is a good example to look for a number of impacting meteoroids, but
it doesn't say how many will graze any given planet though. Unless of
course you're able to figure a ratio of impacting versus grazing bodies.
Does crossing through our atmosphere or the atmosphere of another planet
change the orbit of a meteoroid? I imagine it would right? And would it
come back to hit us again, maybe at a sharper angle? Or would it throw
the meteoroid out into the cosmos never to be seen again?
This really does bring up lots of questions...
Chris Peterson wrote:
Keep in mind during any analysis that small meteoroids are not in
stable orbits, and do not persist forever in the Solar System. There
are drag processes that produce a continual inflow of small objects
towards (and ultimately into) the Sun, and small objects (especially
in planet crossing orbits) are continually being perturbed. A
meteoroid that grazes a planet's atmosphere and receives a fusion
crust probably has a lifetime measured in millions of years at most,
and often much less. So you need to consider both the production and
destruction rate of fusion-crusted meteoroids.
Also, I don't know that talking about absolute numbers is particularly
useful. Whether that number turns out to be large or small, it
certainly represents a vanishingly small percentage of the total
meteoroid population. You're very unlikely while in space to encounter
any meteoroids at all; it could take a ridiculously long time to find
one that had previously encountered a planet.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
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