CEPS Prof. Talks Meteors and Earth on CBC’s Quirks and Quarks

Prof. Joanne O’Meara talked to CBC’s Quirks and Quarks on Aug. 31 about whether Earth gains weight as the result of meteor showers.

A professor and associate chair in the Department of Physics at U of G, O’Meara said Earth does gain weight — about 40,000 tonnes each year — due to space dust and remnants of meteors and asteroids. She added that this planet also loses weight from about 90,000 tonnes of hydrogen that escape Earth annually.

O’Meara studies mineralogy and water content of soils and rocks, and the Spirit rover’s exploration of Mars.