system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: why doesn’t Earth get hit with meteors like the moon?
gpt
1. The moon intercepts a lot of meteors and takes one for the team.
2. Earth has an atmosphere that causes many meteors to burn up before they reach land, or at least shrink to an insignificant size.
3. Meteorites still hit earth all the time.
4. Because there's no atmosphere on the moon, there's nothing to cover up meteorite strikes unless another one hits near it and knocks the dirt around. As a result, you can see impact craters that are *very* old. On earth, our surface is constantly changing erasing most old craters (and, of course, many meteorites land in the ocean or lakes leaving no crater to begin with).