Just a short little paragtaph on what meteors are about. One that includes what they're made of, how big they are, what happens to them, things like that.
2007-03-07 11:54:54 · 5 answers · asked by Computer_Wiz148 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
lol do you need them for school? you know you can find information on wikipedia?
Meteors are a small space rocks usually less then a 100 meters in length(anything larger would be considered and asteroid) They usually are the remnants from a planet that never formed or destroyed. We have two major asteroid belts one in between the sun and mercury and another in between mars and jupiter. The earth experience inpacts from these meteroites quite often but most burn up in the atmosphere. Reason why the moon has so many craters as opposed to Earth is because of the process of plate techtonics. Earth is still in its active face destroying and creating new crust (hence impact craters are destroyed when subducted under the earths crust) The moon no longer goes through its techtonic phase (it has cooled down) and so since the plates don't subduct the craters are preserved.
that was a mouth full!
2007-03-07 12:05:36 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Meteors are the streaks of light you see in the sky when a small rock or bit of dust enters the earth's atmosphere, heats up and disintegrates.
In space, they are meteroids, which are (usually small) bits of debris in orbit around the sun. Some of them come from comets (left behind when the comet comes close to the sun and begins to melt), some from asteroid collisions, and some might just be leftover bits from when the solar system formed. Most meteoroids are really small: fist-sized rocks down to grains of sand, but there's no upper limit to their size, except by the time they get to house-sized, they're generally called asteroids. If their orbit crosses the earth's and they enter the earth's atmosphere, they become meteors.
If a meteor doesn't burn up completely when it enters the atmosphere, the left over parts that hit the ground are called meteorites.
2007-03-07 20:10:13 · answer #2 · answered by Rando 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A meteor is material from space that enter's the atmosphere of earth or another planet. When it goes through the atmosphere it is bright enough to be seen for a while (thus, in this stage, it's popularly called a shooting star.
This definition is elaborated in the Wikipeia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor
2007-03-07 20:07:03 · answer #3 · answered by silvcslt 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
just a small or huge or medium chunk of rock, debris, planet matter that is dislodged whatnot and is "floating" in space. i think dr. evil threw them from his space ship... jk
just think of them of space rocks flying around in space being pulled by gravitational forces. smaller ones that come to earth get burned up in the atmosphere, and larger ones make it through and hit the ground. search: crater lake, usa.
2007-03-07 20:00:16 · answer #4 · answered by firemedic311 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I gave you the answer about 30 minutes ago check your mail.
2007-03-07 20:05:17 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋