What's a meteor, meteorite and a meteoroid?

Answer 1

Most of us probably have seen meteors or shooting stars. A meteor is the flash of light that we see in the night sky when a small chunk of interplanetary debris burns up as it passes through our atmosphere. "Meteor" refers to the flash of light caused by the debris, not the debris itself.

The debris is called a meteoroid. A meteoroid is a piece of interplanetary matter that is smaller than a kilometer and frequently only millimeters in size. Most meteoroids that enter the Earth's atmosphere are so small that they vaporize completely and never reach the planet's surface.

If any part of a meteoroid survives the fall through the atmosphere and lands on Earth, it is called a meteorite. Although the vast majority of meteorites are very small, their size can range from about a fraction of a gram (the size of a pebble) to 100 kilograms (220 lbs) or more (the size of a huge, life-destroying boulder).

Answer 2

Meteor: Meteors are small pieces of space debris (usually parts of comets or asteroids) that are in collision with the earth when entered it's atmosphere
Meteoroid: A meteoroid is the rest of the junk when two asteroids collide.
Meteorite: A meteorite is when a meteor does not bun up completely and lands safely.

Answer 3

Meteorite Definition

Answer 4

meteor
A meteor is the visible event that occurs when a meteoroid or asteroid enters Earth's atmosphere and becomes brightly visible. For bodies with a size scale larger than the atmospheric mean free path (10 cm to several metres) the visibility is due to the heat produced by the ram pressure (not friction, as is commonly assumed) of atmospheric entry. Since the majority of meteors are from small sand-grain size meteoroid bodies, most visible signatures are caused by electron relaxation following the individual collisions between vaporized meteor atoms and atmospheric constituents. The meteor is just what we see.

meteorite
A meteorite is a portion of a meteoroid or asteroid that survives its passage through the atmosphere and impact with the ground without being destroyed. 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.

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.The NEO definition includes larger objects, up to 50 m in diameter, to this category.

Answer 5

Meteor - a small object that enters Earth's atmosphere and vaporises from friction with the air.
Meteorite - a larger meteor that survives the passage through Earth's atmosphere to land on the surface.
Meteoroid - a small object that remains in space (doesn't enter our atmosphere). The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's (or another body's) atmosphere is a meteor.

Answer 6

METEOROID -- a piece of stone or metal drifting in space

METEOR -- a meteoroid that falls through Earth's atmosphere

METEORITE -- a meteor that doesn't burn up completely in Earth's atmosphere and actually lands on the surface

Answer 7

They are all meteoroids, which is the class they are in. (Like Asteroid) A meteor is when it is still in the air and a meteorite is when it has touched the Earth. That is the Answer.

Answer 8

be careful to always use the right term or people will lynch you for some reason
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AhOblHMTcqL7RZq3hWQT8NPsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071012151907AA2qnt8

a meteoroid is a "rock" flying in space

meteor is when a meteoroid is burning as it flys in the atmosphere

a meteorite is when it hits the ground

Answer 9

I think it's:
Meteor = In space
Meteorite = Enters atmosphere and falling
Meteoroid - Small meteor, or maybe the remaining chunk after it's made impact. Not sure on this one.

Answer 10

Meteor: an asteroid still in space, and it may or may not be headed for earth (no, dust does not count).
Meteorite: an asteroid that has succesfully hit the earth in one or more peices and did not evaporate while entering our atmosphere
Meteoroid: An asteroid that has entered the Earth's atmosphere but evaporated in the procces, so it did not hit the earth.