![]() If a meteoroid, comet or asteroid withstands ablation from its atmospheric entry and impacts with the ground, then it is called a meteorite.Īround 15,000 tonnes of meteoroids, micrometeoroids and different forms of space dust enter Earth's atmosphere each year. Objects larger than several meters can explode in the air and create damage. The root word meteor comes from the Greek meteōros, meaning "suspended in the air". In recent decades, man-made objects have fallen to Earth from space, meteorites have been identified on the Moon and Mars, and small interplanetary objects have impacted orbiting spacecraft. The clustered meteoroids associated with regular annual meteor showers are believed to be very small particles of cometary debris. ![]() A meteoroid is significantly smaller than an asteroid, ranging from small grains or particles to the size of large boulders. This definition, however, is no longer adequate. A small, rocky or metallic body revolving in interplanetary space around the Sun. Many meteors appearing seconds or minutes apart, and appearing to originate from the same fixed point in the sky, are called a meteor shower. Meteorites have traditionally been defined as solid objects that have fallen to Earth from space. ![]() The visible streak of light from space debris is the result of heat as it enters a planet's atmosphere, and the glowing particles that it sheds in its wake is called a meteor, or colloquially a "shooting star" or "falling star". A meteoroid is significantly smaller than an asteroid, ranging from small grains to 1-meter wide. Freebase (0.00 / 0 votes) Rate this definition:Ī meteoroid is a small particle from a comet or asteroid. meteoroid in American English (mitirid) noun Astronomy any of the small bodies, often remnants of comets, traveling through space: when such a body enters the earth's atmosphere it is heated to luminosity and becomes a meteor Most material 2005, 1997, 1991 by Penguin Random House LLC.
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