
There could be meteors hitting the atmosphere close to the speed of light - c89X
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-meteors-atmosphere.html
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simonCGN
1% of the speed of light does not sound to me as “close” to the speed of
light.

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cellular
I wonder what counts as sub relativistic speed for a meteor?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_speed](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_speed)

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ycombonator
Physicists out there, Shouldn’t the mass of these objects increase as they are
traveling at that speed according to Einstein. Also does the increase in mass
means size of just mass within the same size ?

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pdonis
_> Shouldn’t the mass of these objects increase as they are traveling at that
speed according to Einstein._

"Relativistic mass" is an outdated concept; it's really just another name for
"total energy".

 _> does the increase in mass means size of just mass within the same size ?_

I'm not sure what you mean. Objects traveling at relativistic speeds will be
length contracted, so if anything their apparent "size" decreases.

In any case, as has been pointed out upthread, the speeds actually being
observed are only about 1% of the speed of light, so relativistic effects are
too small to matter.

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perl4ever
I am annoyed by the way the article says "close to the speed of light" and
then revises that to "1% of the speed of light". You can call 90% "close", or
99%, or 99.9%, etc. But 1% is not close.

Also, again, in the beginning it says "relativistic" and then switches to
"sub-relativistic". I don't know exactly what the latter is, but surely it
implies _not_ relativistic?

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mirimir
There's lots of apparently sloppy editing. For example:

> Despite having a sound theoretical basis, the question remains as to whether
> or not meteors larger than a grain of dust enter Earth's atmosphere at sub-
> relativistic or relativistic speeds. These would be meteors that measure 1
> mm (0.04 in), 1 cm (0.4 in), or 10 cm (4 in) in diameter.

I mean, what, they're quantized?

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pdonis
_> There's lots of apparently sloppy editing._

Typical for phys.org. They're going for eyeballs and clicks, not accuracy.

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Apocryphon
Troubling- if any were to hit one of the poles, it could cause a massive
impact.

