(Redirected from Meteor)
Photo of a part of the sky during a
meteor shower over an extended
exposure time. The meteors may have actually occurred several seconds to several minutes apart.
A 'meteoroid' is a large
sand to
boulder-sized particle of debris in the
Solar system. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters the
Earth's (or another body's)
atmosphere is a 'meteor', commonly called a 'shooting star' or 'falling star'. Many meteors are part of a
meteor shower.
Definitions
The root word 'meteor' comes from the
Greek ''meteōros'', meaning ''high in the air''.
Meteoroid
A 'meteoroid' is a small sand to boulder-sized particle of debris in the
Solar system. Larger than that, the object is an
asteroid; smaller than that, it is
interplanetary dust. The current official definition of a meteoroid from the
International Astronomical Union is "A solid object moving in interplanetary space, of a size considerably smaller than an asteroid and considerably larger than an atom or molecule." The
Royal Astronomical Society has proposed a new definition where a meteroid is between 100 µm and 10 m across.
[1]
The
NEO definition includes larger objects, up to 50 m in diameter, to this category.
Meteor
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