Why drop Meteorites

To date, about 1,100 meteorites have been observed to occur and about 40,000 have been found but not read. It is estimated that perhaps 500 meteorites reach the Earth's surface each year, but fewer than ten are recovered. This is because most fall into the ocean, land in remote areas of the Earth and in places that are not easily accessible or visible. From a model animation, it appears that many small asteroids/large meteors pass close to Earth every day. Most of these remain undetected, but recently, three 5-10 m asteroids have been discovered and passed well within the Moon's orbit. Also, recently, an asteroid with a diameter of about 500 meters passed about 2 million kilometers (five times the distance of the Moon) from Earth. It is estimated that one or two 5-10 meter objects pass through the Moon's orbit every day, and there are perhaps 30 million near-Earth objects! Most of these are too small to cause any harm. Five to ten meters is probably the smallest object that can pass through Earth's atmosphere.