What is the difference between a meteor and meteroid?

Answer 1

Astronomers call "shooting stars" meteors. They are small bits of "dust" from space that burn up in the atmosphere. A meteorite is a piece of rock or other material from space that actually lands on Earth.

Answer 2

A rock drifting through space is sometimes called a "meteoroid". If the space rock enters the Earth's atmosphere and begins to burn up, we call the blazing streak through the sky a "meteor".

Once it hits the Earth, the fragments (if any!) are called "meteorites".
A meteorite is a rock, usually big, that is in space outside of Earth's atmosphere. A meteor is a meteorite that has entered Earth's atmosphere without burning up.
A meteoroid is in space, a sand to boulder-sized piece of space debris orbiting the Sun. A meteor is a meteoroid that has entered Earths atmosphere ("shooting star"). If the meteor reaches the surface of the Earth, it is called a meteorite.

A meteor is an object in the process of burning up from friction as it enters Earth's atmosphere. A meteoroid is the same type of object that's just moving around out in space.

For extra bonus points, a meteorite is what's left of a meteoroid that became a meteor and was large enough that part of it survived to be found on the ground later.

Answer 3

A meteoroid is a small rock or particle in space, a meteor is a meteoroid that enters Earth's atmosphere and burns up, creating a streak of light in the sky. If a meteoroid survives its journey through the atmosphere and lands on Earth, it is then called a meteorite.

Answer 4

A meteor is a space rock that enters the Earth's atmosphere. A meteorite is the remnant of a meteor that actually reaches the surface (on land or water).

A meteoroid (smaller than an asteroid) is a chunk of rock and/or ice floating about in space (ranging in size from dust to boulders) that can be billions of years old.

A meteoroid becomes a meteor or "shooting star" when it starts to fall through Earth's atmosphere. It heats up by friction and air compression with air molecules, emitting light along its trail to form a fireball, and shrinks as it falls toward Earth's surface because the friction gradually wears it away.

The meteor that is large and durable enough becomes a meteorite when it has hit the Earth's surface. Any chunk or fragment of original meteoroid on or below earth's surface is a meteorite. The largest distinct meteorite discovered was in 1920 in South Africa. It weighed about 50 tons.

Meteor Showers

When the Earth travels through the trails of dust and debris left over from the comets it produces what we know as meteor showers like the Leonids, the Geminids, and Quadrantids. The meteor showers get their names from the radiant (where the originate in the sky). For example the Leonids radiant is from the constellation of Leo.

Meteoroids travel in variety of orbits and speeds around the Sun. They can enter the earth's atmosphere at speeds ranging from 11 km/s to 72 km/s.
There are three words that refer to the same object in different situations: meteoroid, meteor, and meteorite. The question is about two of these, but the answer involves all three:

A meteoroid is a small body traveling through space. Meteoroids are often remnants of comets.

A meteor is a meteoroid that has entered the earth's atmosphere, which makes it heat and light up. Meteors are sometimes called shooting stars, because they look like bright stars streaking across the sky.

A meteorite is a meteor that has reached the earth (that is, it has not completely burned up in its journey through the atmosphere).
A meteor is the streak of light of a space rock falling into the Earth's atmosphere at high speed and glowing to incandescence due to friction and compressive heating.

A meteorite is the remains of a space rock after it has crashed into the Earth. Meteors frequently explode while falling through the atmosphere, or break up when they hit the ground.

Answer 5

The difference between a meteoroid and a meteorite is that a meteoroid is a rock from the size of a grain of sand to that of a boulder that is in our solar system. If this rock is caught in earth's gravitation well and enters the atmosphere, it is a meteor, and as it falls it burns. If this space rock survives the trip to the ground, it is called a meteorite.

Answer 6

Meteoroid - a rock traveling through space

Meteor - a bright streak that a meteoroid makes when it burns in the Earth's atmosphere

Meteorite - a part of a meteoroid that survives a trip through the atmosphere and winds up as a rock on the ground

Answer 7

A meteroid is a piece of debris flying through the atmosphere. When it burns up we see it as a meteor. A meteorite is a meteoroid that reaches the Earth's surface.
Astronomers call "shooting stars" meteors. They are small bits of "dust" from space that burn up in the atmosphere. A meteorite is a piece of rock or other material from space that actually lands on Earth and a meteoroid the space body which will become a meteor/meteorite before it impacts the Earth.

Answer 8

A meteor is the streak of light caused when a space rock (and often, just a piece of space sand) goes through the Earth's atmosphere. Most meteorites burn up in the atmosphere, and never reach the ground as anything more than dust.

If the space rock survives the trip and strikes the Earth, it is a meteorITE.

Answer 9

The meter is a unit of measurement, a meteor is a "small body of matter from outer space that enters the earth's atmosphere, becoming incandescent as a result of friction and appearing as a streak of light" (according to Dictionary.com).

Answer 10

A meteoroid is any dust to boulder sized object in the solar system.

It becomes a meteor if it enters the Earths atmosphere but fails to hit the ground either because it burns up in the atmosphere or it enters at a shallow angle and fails to hit the surface and returns to space. These are often seen in the form of "falling stars".

It becomes a meteorite if it hits the ground.