Can a rock from space land on the ground?

Have you ever held a smooth pebble in your hand? Feel how hard and heavy it is. Rocks lie on the ground all around us, in gardens, parks and on the beach.

Far above the sky, out in space, there are rocks too. That gives us a curious question. Can a rock from space land on the ground?

Out in space, the rocks drift along through the dark. Some are tiny, like grains of sand. Others are as big as a car. Nothing stops them, so they keep on drifting.

Our Earth pulls on everything close to it. That pull is why your ball falls back down when you throw it up. When a space rock drifts near Earth, Earth pulls it in too.

Down the rock falls, faster and faster, into the air around Earth. It zooms so fast that it pushes hard on the air in front of it. That air gets very hot, and the rock glows bright.

From the ground, we see a quick streak of light across the night sky. That streak is a shooting star, which means a space rock glowing as it falls through the air. It is not a real star at all!

Most shooting stars come from tiny rocks, as small as a grain of sand. The air around them gets hotter than any oven. What do you think happens to such a tiny rock?

The tiny rock burns away into dust, high up in the sky. Its shooting star fades in a blink. Nothing from it reaches the ground.

A bigger space rock is different. It is too big to burn away on the way down. The heat wears away its outside, but its middle stays solid rock.

That leftover rock falls all the way down. Thump! It lands in a field, on a hill or in a sandy desert. Yes, a rock from space can land on the ground!

Earth pulls a space rock down, and it glows as a shooting star. A tiny one burns away, but a big one lands on the ground.

Far away, a dark space rock rests in a quiet field. Once, it was a bright streak across the night sky.