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A meteoroid shown entering the atmosphere, causing a visible meteor and hitting the Earth's surface, becoming a meteorite. A meteoroid (/ ˈ m iː t i ə r ɔɪ d / MEE-tee-ə-royd) [1] is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space.
In total, this meteoroid stream is the largest in the inner Solar System. Since the stream is rather spread out in space, Earth takes several weeks to pass through it, causing an extended period of meteor activity, compared with the much smaller periods of activity in other showers.
It then becomes a meteor and forms a fireball, also known as a shooting star; astronomers call the brightest examples "bolides". Once it settles on the larger body's surface, the meteor becomes a meteorite. Meteorites vary greatly in size. For geologists, a bolide is a meteorite large enough to create an impact crater. [2]
The Arietids, along with the Zeta Perseids, are the most intense daylight meteor showers of the year. [3] The source of the shower is unknown, but scientists suspect that they come from the asteroid 1566 Icarus , [ 3 ] [ 4 ] although the orbit also corresponds similarly to 96P/Machholz .
The Leonid meteor shower peaks around 17 November of each year. The Leonid shower produces a meteor storm, peaking at rates of thousands of meteors per hour. Leonid storms gave birth to the term meteor shower when it was first realised that, during the November 1833 storm, the meteors radiated from near the star Gamma Leonis. The last Leonid ...
These trails of meteoroids cause meteor showers when Earth encounters them. Old trails are spatially not dense and compose the meteor shower with a few meteors per minute. In the case of the Leonids, that tends to peak around 18 November, but some are spread through several days on either side and the specific peak changes every year.
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 .
The Perseids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift–Tuttle that are usually visible from mid-July to late-August.The meteors are called the Perseids because they appear from the general direction of the constellation Perseus and in more modern times have a radiant bordering on Cassiopeia and Camelopardalis.