Have you always been confused between the words meteor and meteorite? To understand them better, we should bring another word, meteoroid, as these are all related to the flashes of light that can at times be seen as streaks across the sky – fondly referred to as “shooting stars”. Based on where the object is, we use the appropriate term.
Meteoroids are space rocks that could be pieces of asteroids and other debris that are made of rock, iron, and nickel. Orbiting in space for billions of years, these can range in size from tiny dust particles to even small asteroids that are miles across.
When these meteoroids enter a planet’s atmosphere, like that of our Earth, at high speed, it burns up in the atmosphere. The shooting star or fireball in this stage is referred to as a meteor.
