Meteor, Meteoroid, and Meteorite

What is a shooting star?

A shooting star is another name for a meteor. But

meteor is not a star at all.

What is a Meteor?

• Meteors are more than dust and ice from the trail of comets.
• Meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering
Earth’s surface at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories.
• A meteor is a light phenomenon or a streak of light that occurs when a
meteoroid burns up as it enters Earth’s atmosphere.
• A meteor or “shooting star” is the visible streak of light from a meteoroid or
micrometeoroid, heated and glowing from entering the Earth’s atmosphere,
as it sheds glowing materiual in its wake.
• The root word meteor comes from the Greek meteorōs, meaning “suspended
in the air”.
• Millions of meteors occur in the Earth’s atmoshere daily.

Characteristics of Meteor
• Size range is about a piece of dust to 10 meters in diameter
• Easy to see at night
• Meteor showers are when many meteors are grouped together in one part of
the sky
• The world’s largest meteor is called Hoba. It weighed 6o tons and is 9’x9’x3’. It
is thought to have fallen 80,000 years ago. It was 84% iron and 16% nickel.
• as layers of the meteor ionizes, the color of light may change according to
the layering of minerals
Possible colors: Orange/ Yellow(sodium) Yellow (iron)
Blue/Green (copper) Purple (potassium) Red (silicate)

What is in a meteor?

 Meteors are no more than dust and ice from the trail of comets.
Why do meteors glow?

 These fleeting streaks of light are nothing more than minute specks of
interplanetatry debris colliding with the upper regions of the Earth’s
atmosphere.
 It is the tremendous friction that causes the meteor to produce light and to
ultimately disintegrate before reaching the Earth’s surface.

Why do meteors fall to earth?

 Larger meteors burn up as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere, creating

fleeting streaks of light.

What happens when a meteor enters the Earth’s atmosphere?

 When a meteoroid enters the Earth’s upper atmosphere, it heats up due to

friction from the air.
 The heat causes gases around meteoroid to glow brightly, and a meteor
appears.
 Most meteors occur in Earth’s mesosphere, about 50-80 kilometers(31-50
miles)above the Earth’s surface.

Where do meteors come from?

In the Solar System

 Most meteoroides come from asteroid belt, having been perturbed by the
gravitational influences of planets, but others are particles from comets,
giving rise to meteor showers.

Has anyone been hit by a meteor?

 The Sylacauga meteorite is the first documented extraterrestrial object to

have injured a human being.

Why do meteors burn up?

 Friction creates a lot of heat, because it translates kinetic energy(the energy

of motion, that is, of your hands moving back and forth or of your
meteor/skydiver falling through the air)into heat energy.

What is a Meteoroid? Where do you think they come from?

 Meteoroid is a broken up rock and dust from either a

comet, asteroid, the Moon or from Mars.
 A meteoroid is a small rocky or metallic body travelling
through space.
  Meteoroids are significantly smaller than asteroids, and range in size from
small grains to 1 meter-wide objects.
 Most are fragments from comets or asteroids, while others are collision impact
debris ejected from bodies such as the Moon or Mars.

Meteoroid collisions with Earth and its atmosphere

 When meteoroids intersect with the Earth’s atmosphere at night, they are
likely to become visible as meteors.
 If meteoroids survive the entry through the atmosphere and reach the Earth’s
surface, they are called meteorites.
 Meteorites are transformed in stucture and chemistry by the heat of entry and
force of impact.

Characteristics of Meteoroid:

• chunks of rock that move within the solar system

• Are usually very small, but some can get to be massive.
• As they enter Earth’s atmosphere the heat of the atmosphere and chemical
reactions taking place on the meteorite produce a glowing tail, which is
usually referred to as a shooting star.
• location and movement result in different terms:
• Meteoroid: out in space
• Meteor: when the chunk of rock burns up in a planets atmosphere
• Meteorite: when the chunk of rock strikes the surface of a planet of a moon.

What do meteoroids do?

 Meteoroids are lumps of rock or iron that orbit that orbit the Sun, just as
planets, asteroids, and comets do.
 Meteoroids ,especially the tiny particles called micrometeroids, are extremely
common throughout the solar system.
 Others meteoroids are the debris that comets shed as they travel through
space.

Why do meteoroids fall into the earth?

 Most meteoroids are small fragments of rock created by asteroid collisions.

Comets also create meteoroids as they orbit the sun and shed dust and
debris.When a meteoroids enters the Earth’s upper atmosphere, it heats up
due to friction from the air.

What do meteors and meteoroids have in common?

 Meteoroids are objects in space that range in size from dust grains to small
asteroids. Think of them as “space rocks”.
  When meteoroides enter Earth’s atmosphere (or that of another planet, like
Mars)at high speed and burn up, the fireballs or “shooting stars” are called
meteors.

How fast do meteoroids travel?

 Meteoroids enter the earth’s atmosphere at vert high speeds, ranging from 11
km/sec to 72 km/sec (25,000 mph to 160,000 mph).

What is the origin of meteoroids?

 Most meteoroids come from the asteroid belt, having been perturbed by the
gravitational influences of planets, but others are particles from comets,
giving rise to meteor showers.

What is a Meteorite?

 Is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a

comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in
outer space and survives its passage through the
atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or
moon. Meteorite vary greatly in size.

Harvey H. Nininger - who started discovered that meteorites

are much more common on the surface of the Earth than
previously thought.

Characteristics of Meteorite

• Chunk of rock strikes the surface of a planet of a moon.

• Rarely round in shape
• Heavier than Earth rocks

3 Main Types of Meteorites

Iron Meteorite Stony-iron Meteorite Stony

• Iron meteorites- which are almost completely made of metal.

• Stony-iron meteorites-which have nearly equal amounts of metal and silicate
crystals.
• Stony meteorites – which mostly have silicate minerals.
How can you identify a meteorite?

 Meteorites which have fallen recently may have a black “ash-like” crust on
their surface.
 When a meteorite falls through the Earth’s atmosphere a very thin layer on
the outer surface melts. This thin crust is called a fusion crust. It is often black
and looks like an eggshell coating the rock.
What is the diference between meteor and meteorite?

 If a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere and vaporizes, it becomes a

meteor, which is often called a shooting star.
 if a small asteroid or large meteoroid survives its fiery passage through the
Earth’s atmosphere and lands aon Earth’s surface it is then called meteorite.

Lesson Recap
• Meteoroid
- a small particle from comet or astreoid orbiting the sun.
• Meteor
- the light phenomena which results when a meteoroid enters the Earth’s
atmosphere and vaporizes; a shooting star.
• Meteorite
- a meteoroid that survives its passage through the Earth’s atmosphere and
lands upon the Earth’s surface.
Meteors, Meteoroids
and Meteorites

Submitted by: Marie Con M. Canceran

BEEd -4

Submitted to: Daren T. Baui

Subject Professor