QUESTIONS & ANSWERS Listen hard enough and you might hear the sonic boom of a meteor

From: The Sunday Telegraph London | Date: September 21, 2003| Author: | Copyright information

Do meteorites make a noise as they fall to Earth?

Clive Beesley, Crowborough

Entering the Earth's atmosphere at speeds of 40,000mph or more, most of these chunks of cosmic debris burn up too high to generate anything we can hear at ground level. Those that penetrate deep into the atmosphere create a shock wave of compressed air in front of them, which may reach the ground as an audible "sonic boom".

In many cases the aerodynamic stresses become so great the meteors detonate in mid-air, with dramatic effect. In 1999, scientists at the seismology division of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological ...

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