AS101 Study Guide - Final Guide: Perseids, Ecliptic, Oort Cloud
Document Summary
Meteoroids, meteors and meteorites are found around earth. Meteors are actually small bits of rock and/or metal falling into. Earth"s atmosphere that heat up due to friction with the air. We see them as shooting stars (of course, they are not stars at all). A meteoroid is what the rocky object is called before it hits the atmosphere and becomes a meteor. If the meteoroid is massive enough to have any part of it left before it hits the earth"s surface it then becomes a meteorite. Interestingly, no human is known to have been killed by a meteorite (although see cartoon) but many have landed on houses and cars: most meteorites come from asteroids in the kuiper belt. Some meteorites appear to have originated from fragments that have been chipped off a larger asteroid. Or some other larger object such as a planet or a moon.
