In message ,
Painius writes
"Dark Matters" wrote...
in message ...

Asteroid fragments on a fast collision course

Over a million large asteroids, each several kilometres wide, are orbiting
the Sun in a belt between Mars and Jupiter. There are sometimes violent
collisions. Until now, it has been thought that the re-sulting asteroid
fragments would need several million years to reach the Earth. New
measurements from the Noble Gas Laboratory of ETH Zurich show however,
that
the Earth could be reached much sooner. This knowl-edge is significant for
the prediction of future meteorite impacts on Earth.

http://www.starsandplanets.info/news...7&section=news

Interesting...

I wonder if the NGL people at ETH Zurich have taken into
account that their meteorites were a bit larger before they
encountered Earth's atmosphere. There may have been
significantly greater amounts of noble gas in the original
fragments which also might mean significantly longer travel
time.

But the inside of a meteorite isn't heated by passage through the
atmosphere. It's too quick. I'm sure they would avoid the outer parts
and the fusion crust.