   How many people get hit by falling meteorites?
  I have heard this so many times, I just had to start a thread!from so many people and tv shows, everyone here has probably heard at least once, you are statistically more likly to be hit by a falling meteorite than to win the lottery?I was wondering, and looked up the odds on the internet, and it is true, from so many diffrent sites they say the same thing.so... how many people get hit by them? Every week, worldwide someone wins the lottery, There is a lottery in almost every country, I know from England that not every week someone wins, but they do more often than not, America is over 50x the size, I do not know how the lottery works there, if it is just per state or if there is a country wide one, but at 50x~ the ammount of tickets sold, multiple winners must win every week.So, with probably AT LEAST 20-30~ people (just a kind of educated guess) winning the lottery each week world wide, and the odds of that being a lot more than the odds for being hit by a meteorite, does that mean more people get hit by them each week or should the statistic for being hit be changed?This is one to think about!   
'Meteorite' hits girlQuote:Tuesday, 27 August, 2002, 12:27 GMT 13:27 UKThe odds against being hit by a meteorite are billions to one - but a teenager in North Yorkshire may have had one land on her foot.Siobhan Cowton, 14, was getting into the family car outside her Northallerton home at 1030 BST on Thursday when a stone fell on her from the sky. ...What's Up This Week - October 31 - November 6, 2005Quote:...Thursday, November 3 - On this day in 1955, one of the few documented case of a person being hit by a meteorite occurred. What are the odds on that? Better than average tonight......Big Game FeverQuote:Odds of being struck by a meteorite: 1 in 10,000,000,000,000Odds of winning the Big Game Jackpot: 1 in 76,000,000The OddsQuote:Odds of being struck by lightning: 576,000 to 1Odds of being killed by lightning: 2,320,000 to 1Odds of winning the California lottery: 13,000,000 to 1Odds of a meteor landing on your house: 182,138,880,000,000 to 1;  I don't know where or how to find the number you seek, but I think the expression you talk about was either used as hyperbole and mistaken for fact by others or originally targetted about a single specific lottery with very low odds (perhaps one rigged so as to have no winners - maybe it was originally meant as an accusation).Over here, lotteries are generally run by individual states, but there are also a few run by several states together. The lottery run by the state in which I live has a jackpot winner almost every week, and I would estimate that the interstate lottery has a jackpot winner for around every 8 drawings.   ;  Actually, the odds of being killed by a space rock are pretty large, considering how powerful some are. Just the last century there was one as strong as an H-bomb (link).   ;  Well, let's estimate...googling givesbetween 36 and 166 meteorites larger than 10 grams fall to Earth per million square kilometers per yearMillion square kiometers = 10^12 m^2So we have 50 meteorites per year per 10^12 m^2Assuming effective area of "got stuck by meteorite"(or falls nearby) is 1 square meter. Assuming there is 5*10^9 people, we get 50 * 5*10^9 / 10^12 = 0.25So, every 4 years meteorite larger than 10 grams woulda land real close to somebody or hit him.I'm assuming that by meteorite they mean meteorite that gets to Earth surface.Also, if every billion years* there falls some meteorite that kills everyone(>5 billions people), that'd be some 5 people per year....*more like every hundred million. Then odds of getting killed in year is about 1/100 million, better than many lotteries. (Probably real odds is even higher than this estimate)[Edited by - Dmytry on December 7, 2005 6:32:25 AM];  But it doesnt really make any sense to talk about the odds without specifying the time interval in which it should happpen.   ;  If they don't give an interval can't you just assume they're talking about the average life span?   ;  then there's indeed bigger chance... if meteorite that would kill almost everyone (like dino-killing one) falls about once per 100 millions years, your chance to get killed by meteorite in 75 years is about 75 in 100 million or 3 in four millions. Many lotteries (i.e. single lottery) has lower chance, few has higher. Noting that there is smaller meteorites too, chance is even "better".(note: it's just estimate, but i think it is approximately correct)   ;  So maybe we need to change the statistic to "better chance of being killed" by a meteorite, since the man-facts (see Sanger) above clearly state that you have a better chance of being killed by a meteorite than of being hit.I wonder how many birds get knocked out of the sky by meteorites...You know, birds have a much better chance of being hit by a meteorite than of winning the lottery, mainly because they aren't eligible.I'm starting the bird-meteor-lottery rights movement!  Birds should have the same chances of money-winning and space rock death as everybody else!  Who's with me!   ;Quote:Original post by JBourrieWho's with me!*silence*