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A meteor or shooting star [8] is the visible passage of a meteoroid, comet, or asteroid entering Earth's atmosphere. At a speed typically in excess of 20 km/s (72,000 km/h; 45,000 mph), aerodynamic heating of that object produces a streak of light, both from the glowing object and the trail of glowing particles that it leaves in its wake.
Meteoritics [note 1] is the science that deals with meteors, meteorites, and meteoroids. [note 2] [2] [3] It is closely connected to cosmochemistry, mineralogy and geochemistry. A specialist who studies meteoritics is known as a meteoriticist. [4]
Fred Lawrence Whipple first coined the term "micro-meteorite" to describe dust-sized objects that fall to the Earth. [4] Sometimes meteoroids and micrometeoroids entering the Earth's atmosphere are visible as meteors or "shooting stars", whether or not they reach the ground and survive as meteorites and micrometeorites.
Meteorite classification may indicate that a "genetic" relationship exists between similar meteorite specimens. Similarly classified meteorites may share a common origin, and therefore may come from the same astronomical object (such as a planet, asteroid, or moon) known as a parent body. However, with current scientific knowledge, these types ...
Meteors: When meteoroids survive Earth's atmosphere (or that of another planet, like Mars) and burn up, the fireballs or "shooting stars" are called meteors. Meteorites When a meteoroid survives a ...
Those which are asteroids can additionally be members of an asteroid family, and comets create meteoroid streams that can generate meteor showers. As of December 30, 2024 and according to statistics maintained by CNEOS, 37,378 NEOs have been discovered. Only 123 (0.33%) of them are comets, whilst 37,255 (99.67%) are asteroids. 2,465 of those ...
The legendary Chinguetti meteorite is also supposed to be a mesosiderite. The asteroid 16 Psyche is a candidate for the parent body of the mesosiderites. [5] However, a reliable delivery mechanism lacks for Psyche, and spectral analysis indicates the mesosiderites derive from the Maria Asteroid Family [6]
An Earth-grazing fireball (or Earth grazer) [2] is a fireball, a very bright meteor that enters Earth’s atmosphere and leaves again. Some fragments may impact Earth as meteorites, if the meteor starts to break up or explodes in mid-air. These phenomena are then called Earth-grazing meteor processions and bolides. [1]