Sunday, May 29, 2011

Meteors, Meteoroid and Meteorites.

Meteoroid is a particle of debris in the Solar System. The meteoroid can be of the size of a speck of sand or even a boulder. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's (or another body's) atmosphere is called a meteor, or colloquially a shooting star or falling star. If a meteoroid reaches the ground and survives impact, then it is called a meteorite. A meteorite is supposed to have destroyed the whole of the dinosaurs a few million years ago. Many meteors appearing seconds or minutes apart are called a meteor shower. The root word meteor comes from the Greek meteōros, meaning "high in the air".
A meteor in Canada 

Meteoroid: The International Space Union describes a meteoroid as a "solid object that is much smaller than an asteroid but much larger than an atom". Very small meteoroids are known as micrometeoroids or interplanetary dust. 

Meteors: A meteor is the visible path of a meteoroid that has entered the Earth's atmosphere. Millions of meteors occur in the Earth's atmosphere every day. Meteors burn in the atmosphere, not due to friction, but due to ram pressure. The pressure heats it so much that the meteor glows and leaves a tail of glowing gases.

Perseid meteor
Meteorite(s): meteorite is a portion of a meteoroid or asteroid that touches the surface of the Earth and survives even the impact. Meteorites are sometimes, but not always, found in association with hypervelocity impact craters; during energetic collisions, the entire impactor may be vaporized, leaving no meteorites. 







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