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Leonids don’t hit the ground

The heat created by a meteor (or meteoroid, if you prefer) vaporizes most of them high in the air. Even larger space rocks, up to basketball size, typically burn up and don’t survive to the ground, though a handful -- those made of dense material -- do.

However, comet material -- the stuff of the Leonids -- is "fluffy," astronomers say. It fragments and disintegrates easily. And anyway, amongst the Leonids there are no basketballs. We’re talking sand grains mixed in with a few marbles. All fluffy.

Most meteors start lighting up until about 60 miles high (100 kilometers). Leonids, for reasons you'll soon learn, move more quickly and generate the beginnings of their demise more quickly. Leonids have been spotted turning on the juice above 87 miles (140 kilometers), where the air is really thin.

A Leonid doesn’t stand a chance of reaching the surface, no matter what you call it.

[Leonids Full Coverage]

Fact #4 may rub you the wrong way …