Scientists map seven-stage process of how meteorites survive Earth's atmosphere

For as long as humans have watched the night sky, the brief streak of a falling rock has seemed like a simple vanishing act — here, then gone. A team from the SETI Institute and NASA Ames has now revealed that this disappearance follows a precise seven-stage choreography, and that the forces governing it are not what scientists long assumed. By studying 75 meteorite falls, researchers have established that melting and fragmentation — not evaporation — determine how space rocks shed mass during atmospheric entry, a distinction with real consequences for how humanity prepares for the next Chelya