The meteoroid
No astronomical term is misused so often as the word meteor. It is often misused even scientists, while it would be better to say – the meteoroid or meteorite. What is the difference?
- Meteoroid is small solid space object, usually a piece of an asteroid or comet moving in its orbit around the sun. Some (very few) meteoroids are actually fragments of Mars and the Moon.
- Meteor is a flash of light when the small solid object from space enters the Earth's atmosphere; namely the meteors are called "shooting stars". According to the official definition of the International Meteor Organization, meteoroid is a solid object moving in interplanetary space, the size is much smaller than an asteroid, but much more of the atom. Royal Astronomical Society has put forward a different wording, according to which the meteoroid is the body of a diameter of 100 mkm to 10 m. Other sources limit the meteoroid the size of 30 m.
- The meteorite is a solid meteoroid that fell on the Earth's surface (and not burned in the atmosphere).
If a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere, the meteor phenomenon may occur due to air friction - a flash of light, bright enough to see it. If a meteoroid is large enough to reach the Earth, is not fully burned in the atmosphere, it becomes a meteorite. Many people are searching for and collecting meteorites.
There are two main types of meteoroids that have different origins.
- Cometary meteoroid is a lightweight dust particle, which "dropped" from comet.
- Asteroid meteoroid, ranging in size from microscopic particles to large stones – it's literally a fragment of an asteroid, or the so-called small planets that are rocky body orbiting the Sun.
