Tag: asteroids, comets, and meteors and meteorites

Shooting stars look like stars that quickly shoot across the sky, but they are not stars. A shooting star is really a small piece of rock or dust that hits Earth's atmosphere from space. It moves so fast that it heats up and glows as it moves through the atmosphere. Shooting stars are actually what astronomers call meteors. Most meteors burn up in the atmosphere before they reach the ground. However, once in a while a meteor is large enough than some of it survives and reaches Earth's surface. Then it is called a meteorite.
Hence, shooting star is a common name for the visible path of a meteoroid as it enters the atmosphere, becoming a meteor.

Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust when passing close to the Sun, heats up and begins to outgas, displaying a tail. Comets have a wide range of orbital periods, ranging from several years to several millions of years. An example is the famous Halley's comet which has an orbital period of 76 years.

 A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from such sources as asteroids or comets, that originates in outer space and survives its impact with the Earth's surface. It is called a meteoroid before its impact.

A shooting star is another name of a meteroid that burns up as it passes through earths atmoshpere.