On what terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) an astronaut on the surface of these planets could observe meteors?
August 2, 2020 | Education
| You can see a meteor on Earth and Mars. A meteor is a phenomenon of burning of a space body in the atmosphere of a planet. Mercury has no atmosphere, and Venus has such a dense atmosphere that a meteor will simply not be visible through it from the planet’s surface. On Mars, the density of the atmosphere is about 1/100 of the density of the Earth’s atmosphere, which corresponds to heights of the order of 30 km. Meteors on Earth light up at an altitude of 80-100 km, so they can be observed on Mars, but practically at the surface of the planet.
