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This article is about meteors and how often they land on Earth. On Thursday Feb. 14/13 a meteorite fell to Earth in Russia overnight and so far 500 people have been injured. space rocks enter Earth's atmosphere all the time but most burn up before it can reach Earth's surface. A mineralogist at the University of Muenster in Germany, said that there are typically five to ten meteorite strikes around Earth per year but most we do not hear about or see because the Earth is about 70% water and most land there. This article relates to the Environment tag because even though it is very rare to see a meteorite hit Earth they can change the landscape and even the sometimes life. An example of this is with the dinosaurs or creating a crater hole which can later turn into a lake.

Space rocks as much as 100 feet wide are estimated to hit a hundred years or so. But, there are rare " killer asteroids" that can wipe out a city the size of Moscow and kill 30,000 in an instant. But the university of Hawaii's new meteor tracking systems come online, we'll be able to forecast meteor strikes as accurately as predicting when a blizzard is coming.  This device is known as ATLAS ( Asteroid terrestrial-impact Last Alert System). This device consists of a pair of observatories located about 60 miles apart, each equipped with four, 10-inch telescopes with 100 MP cameras. Together, these observatories would scan the sky 2 times a night. The telescope may be very small  but will be sensitive enough to spot and estimate an incoming threat in the exact location and time.  This project started since 2012 but got a a jump start with a $5 million grant by NASA.