The Odds Have It

For no immediately apparent reason, number crunchers have calculated the odds that you will be struck by a meteorite in your lifetime.  Those odds are 1 in 700,000.  The odds that lightning will strike you—by way of comparison—are 1 in 10,000.

Now this:

Last Saturday, a man in India was killed by a meteorite that crashed down onto a college campus there.  This is thought to be the first human fatality caused by such an event in all recorded history.

People in the region reported hearing a “big noise” at the time of the incident.  The meteorite impact produced a crater on the campus grounds and shattered windows on nearby buildings and buses.  The man killed by the meteorite was walking outside when the meteorite struck the campus grounds.

--Mitchell Hegman

Sources: Wall Street Journal, HowStuffWorks, Time