Stare up at the night sky, and if you’re lucky, you might see a shooting star. Some people might make a wish, but CrowdScience listener Scott in California in the USA, thinks differently. He’s wondering how dangerous they might be.
Shooting stars are actually meteors, ending their incredible journey whizzing through the depths of space by burning through our atmosphere, and crashing down to earth. And Scott’s not wrong to worry about them! In May 2026, an enormous meteor exploded off the coast of Massachusetts, causing a loud sonic boom before crashing into the ocean, releasing the equivalent energy of 300 tons of TNT!
So, should we be worried? Marnie Chesterton is on the case.
In Australia, Hadrien Devillepoix is the chief scientist for the Desert Fireball Network, which tracks meteors through the sky, and tries to recover any meteorites which make it to earth. He explains just how many of these smaller space rocks arrive on our planet every day, how many of them survive long enough to make it to the surface, and tries to figure out how much should we be worried about it happening to us.
Over in the USA, NASA are less worried about the meteors, and more concerned about their big brothers – asteroids. These are the ones which could take out your whole neighbourhood. Or your whole city. Or even the whole planet. Kelly Fast, with NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office explains what the chances are one might be headed our way, and what we could do about it if they are. Push them away, pull them off course, or blow them up, are the options on the table.
But space rocks, small OR large, aren’t the only things which could be tumbling down on our heads from outside our atmosphere. In fact, you might be more likely to be hit but something of our own – a man-made piece of space junk, falling out of orbit and whizzing towards the surface. Stephen Wokes, chief engineer at Astroscale, explains their mission: to use their innovative satellite to clean up Low Earth Orbit, and reduce the risk to us here on the ground.
