Summary

Randall acknowledges that fear is part of the fascination with meteoric objects that suddenly flash into view in the night sky and blaze brightly for seconds before becoming ash. She points out that most of the sizable meteors that have struck earth—often with cataclysmic results—occurred during the Late Heavy Bombardment billions of years ago when the solar system was relatively young. Since then, she writes, the solar system has achieved a kinetic balance that makes the likelihood of earth being struck by a large object almost negligible.

In fact, she even pleads the case for meteoroids as helpful to the earth and to humanity. Meteorites very likely brought fragments of DNA molecules, as well as water, to earth to help with the beginning of life. Randall believes that "most of the minerals we mine here [on earth] come from...