Related topics: nasa · night sky

Heat to blame for space pebble demise

The dust of comets fills the space between the planets, collectively called the zodiacal cloud. Still, severe breakdown has reduced that dust in size so much that it now scatters sunlight efficiently, causing the faint glow ...

Comet Encke and the Halloween Fireballs of 2023

October and November are always great months to watch for meteors, and 2023 is no exception. This year provides a special reason to be vigilant, as the source of the November Taurid Fireballs Comet 2P Encke reaches perihelion ...

page 1 from 35

Meteoroid

A meteoroid is a sand- to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar System. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's (or another body's) atmosphere is called a meteor, or colloquially a shooting star or falling star. If a meteoroid reaches the ground and survives impact, then it is called a meteorite. Many meteors appearing seconds or minutes apart are called a meteor shower. The root word meteor comes from the Greek meteo¯ros, meaning "high in the air". The Minor Planet Center does not use the term "meteoroid".

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA