When these intruders make contact, what damage do they do? It all depends on their size and where they hit. Since Earth is mostly made up of water, a small meteorite falling into the Atlantic Ocean probably won’t harm anything. But some meteorites strike solid ground. A meteorite weighing about sixty tons once hit near a farm in southern Africa. Another huge one broke up in the air above Siberia in 1908. It destroyed tree in a twenty-mile area.