Re: Would we hear a big meteor/comet bouncing off the atmosphere?

Question: Would we hear a big meteor/comet bouncing off the atmosphere?

If a big meteor or comet, at least of the size of the one that hit the Earth around 65 millions years ago contributing to the mass extinction, glanced Earth bouncing off the atmosphere, would we hear anything from the ground? If yes, what would it sound like and how loud would it be?

In general, meteors (even very large ones) that stay in the upper atmosphere do not produce sounds at the surface in the frequency range of human hearing. They do, however, produce very low frequency energy called infrasound. Of course, we have no direct experience with 10km diameter bodies passing through the upper atmosphere (thankfully!), but for smaller bodies, we don't usually get reports of sound unless they drop below about 30 km.

So to summarize, it is possible that a lot of low frequency acoustic energy could reach the ground, but probably nothing we would hear.