Every second, millions of pieces of dirt that are smaller than a grain of sand strike Earth's upper atmosphere. At about 100 kilometers altitude, bits of dust, mainly debris from asteroid collisions, zing through the sky vaporizing as they go 10 to 100 times the speed of a bullet. The bigger ones can make streaks in the sky, meteors that take our breath away.

Scientists are using supercomputers to help understand how tiny meteors, invisible to the naked eye, liberate electrons that can be detected by radar and can characterize the speed, direction and rate of meteor deceleration with high precision, allowing its origin to be determined. Because this falling space dust helps seed rain-making clouds, this basic research on meteors will help scientists more fully understand the chemistry of Earth's atmosphere. What's more, meteor composition helps astronomers characterize the space environment of our solar system.

Meteors play an important role in upper atmospheric science, not just for the Earth but for other planets as well. They allow scientists to be able to diagnose what's in the air using pulsed laser remote sensing lidar, which bounces off meteor dust to reveal the temperature, density, and the winds of the upper atmosphere.

Scientists also track with radar the plasma generated by meteors, determining how fast winds are moving in the upper atmosphere by how fast the plasma is pushed around. It's a region that's impossible to study with satellites, as the atmospheric drag at these altitudes will cause the spacecraft to re-enter the atmosphere.