Can the earth realy get hit by a meteor?
489075
Dude, big time.  Run a search for Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona.  Wanna have some fun with meteors, YOUR meteors, check out the link below.  You can pick the size, speed, and composition of your choice, hurl it toward your favorite planet or moon, and reap the catastrophic results!
157349
There was a mysterious explosion.  The explosion was extreamly powerful (on the scale of atomic bombs I believe), flatting trees all around.  But it wasnt for a number of years that people were able to get up there and try find out what happened.\n\nIt possible could have been a meteor explosion right before it hit the ground, but there is no other evidence to support this.  I dont think we really know what happened, but the meteor idea is pretty likely I think.
437156
Sure, the main theory right now is that of a large meteoritic impact, first seriously proposed back in 1980. It fits the requirement of a rapid and sudden kill-off event. What killed the dinosuars? Well the immediate effect of a large asteroid impact would be global firestorms. The ejecta reaches low earth orbit and then superheats as it re-enters the atmosphere. This pretty much covers much of the planet in fire. Other bad things happen, toxic metals in the air and water, dust obscuring the sun, many bad things, but the main killing factor is the global fire storm.\n\nAs scientists we really like the asteroid impact theory as it is supported with the following evidence:\n\n1. The boundry layer in which the extinction occured is ultra-rich in the element irridum. These high concentrations of irridium are not found on earth, but match very well to those of meteoritic samples that we have. This boundry layer with irridium has been found all over the globe.\n\n2. Shocked quartz deposits have been found in the regions near central to lower north america, indicating a large shockwave propagated across the area\n\n3. Tiny glass beads have been found in the same regions, with larger ones more concentrated near the Yucatan. Thes glass bead are most closely related to objects we call Tektites, a glass that forms from meteorite impact ejecta. (cool science thing: you can get tektites for a couple dollars at any rock shop!)\n\n4. Tsunami deposits from that era have been found in the gulf of mexico region, indicating massive tidal wave events\n\n5. A crater caused an impact large enough to cause all of these things has been found right on the coast of the Yucatan, centered on Chicxulub, and dating to the right time period.
1162500
To answer some of your question......\nThe average velocity of meteoroids entering our atmosphere is 10-70 km/second. The smaller ones that survive the trip to the Earth's surface are quickly slowed by atmospheric friction to speeds of a few hundred kilometers per hour, and so hit the Earth with no more speed than if they had been dropped from a tall building. For meteorites larger than a few hundred tons (which fortunately are quite rare), atmospheric friction has little effect on the velocity and they hit the Earth with the enormous speeds characteristic of their entry into our atmosphere. Thus, for example, it is estimated that the meteorite that produced the Barringer Crater(http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/meteors/meteor.jpg) was still travelling at 11 km/second when it struck what is now the Arizona desert 49,000 years ago. Such objects do enormous damage, because the kinetic energy carried by the meteorite is the product of the mass and the square of the velocity. A meteorite that large hitting the ocean would create a Tsunami. Whether it would cause as much damage as the one in Indonesia/india/africa, would depend on how close to land the meteorite struck. Change in our ecosystem would not be that great. On the other hand if we were to be struck by an asteroid as in the case of the K-T Extinction, there would be a dramatic effect on the ecosystem. ( just a quick note on asteroids,comets and meteors: Asteroids and comets are both classified as near-Earth objects. Asteroids are made of rock or metal and are thought to have been created in the warmer inner solar system. Comets are composed of ice, rock, and organic (carbon-based) compounds, and are believed to have formed in the cold outer solar sytem. Scientists believe both are "...ancient remnants of the earliest years of the formation of our solar system more than four billion years ago." When asteroids collide, meteroids, smaller rocky bodies, often result. Meteroids are also formed when a comet passes near the sun, and the heat releases dust particles from the comet's icy tail. When a meteroid or asteroid enters the Earth's atmosphere, it ignites, creating a visible streak of light called a meteor. If the object doesn't vaporize completely and crashes into the Earth, it's called a meteorite. \nFinaly, a meteorite, because of its size, would not cause dramatic changes to our eco-system, however, large one can would be able to produce a tsunami.....\n\nChris
1139915
Meteor strikes happen all the time. If you're talking about the cataclysmic ones that cause mass extinctions, the probability is very low as these events happen millions of years apart.
444699
You don't have to worry. The meteor that is sure to hit us will be in 2880.
26143
the earth will probably not exist in the same fashion as it does today.  a meteor will probably hit us and start the life cycle again in the next 200 mill or so.  Probably more water and less land so i figure more water based life will exist
431791
when a meteoroid enters the atmosphere and burns up it produces a meteor.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor
1087792
No. The earth would still rock on. Only its magnetic field would be annihilated. Like at Mars. Or Moon.
135962
Actually, the moon does have an atmosphere, and EXTEAMLY thin, tiny, very small, negligible atmosphere.\n\nThe chances of getting hit are miniscule, there is virtually no risk.  You can see the moon of covered with impact craters, but remember, these happened over the course of billions of years.  The chances are very slim, you would have to VERY unlucky to be hit.
1151361
I don't think the science channel said it was going to hit. It said that there was a "chance" that it could hit.\nCurrently the odds are about a 1 in 300 chance of it hitting the earth on march 16 2880.\nHowever since we are talking about almost 900 years in the future it is really hard to predict the asteroids exact path.\nMany things affect the orbit of asteroids (gravity of planets, the solar wind, even the thermal emission of the asteroid itself)\nIt will take many years to measure the path of the asteroid more precisely. and then we will have a better idea of how close it is going to get.\neither way, we are talking 900 years in the future, so there is no need to panic. Even if further calculations show it will hit, we have plenty of time to come up with ways to prevent this.\nso go out lay down in the sun with a nice cool drink, soak up some rays, and worry not about such things.
79026
Occassionally, a meteor will fly through the atmosphere and strike a giraffe.
1129368
Wow I think the guy above me is a couple of sandwiches shy of a picnic basket. Here's part of a news story about it on slashdot.\n\n\nRecord Meteorite Hits Norway \nPosted by Zonk on Friday June 09, @08:44PM\nfrom the duck dept. \n  equex256 writes \n"Early Wednesday morning, a meteorite streaked across the sky in northern Norway, near Finland and Russia. A witness (Article in Norwegian) went up the mountain to where it hit and reported seeing large boulders that had fallen out of the mountainside, along with many broken trees. Norwegian astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard told Aftenposten, Norway's largest newspaper, that he would compare the explosive force of the impact with the Hiroshima bomb. This meteorite is suspected to be much larger than the 90-kilo (198-pound) meteorite which hit Alta in 1904, previously recognized as the largest to hit Norway. From the article: 'Røed Ødegaard said the meteorite was visible to an area of several hundred kilometers despite the brightness of the midnight sunlit summer sky. The meteorite hit a mountainside in Reisadalen in North Troms.'"
23431
First, there is no way they can fall. Falling of things on earth is due to its gravity. Most of the heavenly bodies out there are much much bigger than earth itself (stars, planest like jupiter, neptune, saturn) and they are very far off. \n\nSo if at all you mean to say they collide, it will be like one gigantic explosion and earth will be ripped to pieces (even if something as small as our moon falls!) \n\nThere is no question of where they will fall. The collision point can be any place depending on where the earth is and considering its rotation.\n\n:)
1138910
No, and something from outside it would have to break Jupiter apart if it came apart, and if it did, the number and size of pieces it broke into would depend on what hit it, how big it was, and how fast it was traveling first.  And it would have to be much bigger than Earth to do any damage to Jupiter.  There are many other things to be concerned about - like bad movies.
356083
The earth would have more craters than the moon almost, had it not developed an atmosphere.  The atmosphere burns up anything trying to pass through it into a tiny meteorite.\n\nSame reason that mercury is battered with the asteroids.
225823
Here on earth, we have a layer of gases surrounding us. The layer is called atmosphere. The gas is called air which is actually a mixture of many gases. The properties of the atmosphere varies according to height. Earth has her own atmosphere because she has enough gravity to attract all the things towards the center. But the Moon has a lower mass than that of earth. So, the gravitational pull is not enough to hold the atmosphere. You might have spied many fireballs or meteors in a starry night. They are big ball of rocks. When they come in the atmosphere they are burnt due to friction with the air. So, when they hit the ground they're most likely to be burnt to ashes. But, as Moon has no atmosphere, the rocky meteor-balls hit the ground without any interruption. So, moon's surface is filled with uncountable craters due to absence of an atmosphere.