What's the difference between a meteroid and a meteorite?

Question

What's the difference between a meteroid and a meteorite?

Answer 1

cool site to share

http://www.meteoritemarket.com/metid1.ht...

Answer 2

Meteoroid is the term used while they move through our atmosphere.  Meteorite is the term for them when a piece has landed on Earth (or the Moon or Mars, meteorites having been found on all three).

Answer 3

A meteoroid is a small sand to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar system.

A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives an impact with the Earth's surface.

I'm sending you this link that I found online:

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/meteor.htm

Hope it helps!

Answer 4

i think meteroid is one and meteorite is many meteroids. *Wild guess without looking at other answers you have been given* They're more than likely right haha.

Answer 5

A meteoroid is a small sand to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar system. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's atmosphere is a meteor, commonly called a "shooting star" or "falling star". When a meteoroid falls to the surface of the earth, it's called a meteorite.

Answer 6

The current official definition of a meteoroid from the International Astronomical Union is "A solid object moving in interplanetary space, of a size considerably smaller than an asteroid and considerably larger than an atom or molecule."

Meteorites are fragments of rock and/or metal that fall to Earth from space. Having broken away from a larger extraterrestrial body, meteorites can measure anything from a fraction of a millimetre to the size of a football pitch and bigger. Captured by Earth's gravitational force, they are accelerated to speeds of over 11.2 kilometres per second. As they enter Earth's thick gassy atmosphere they slow rapidly due to the friction and glow, flashing across the sky like a firework, before finally crashing to the ground.  

Answer 7

Hello,

A meteor (meteoroid) is a very small object - generally around the size of a grain of salt. These are what cause "Shooting stars" or the correct name meteors. The larger the meteor the brighter it will be in the sky.

At any given time in a clear (night) sky you'll see around 6 an hour. During certain times of the year (known as meteor showers) you can see many more (e.g. Aug 12th (Perseids) - around 1 per minute).

A meteorite is a larger object that enters the earths atmosphere and reaches the ground - this can cause a small hole in the ground or destroy large area's (one killed the dinosaurs?).

HTH

Ant

www.stargazerslounge.com

Answer 8

A meteoroid is a piece of space debris.  A meteorite is what is left over after a meteoroid travels through the Earth's atmosphere.

I.e. a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere, which creates a bright flash of light (meteor, aka a "shooting star"), and what didn't burn off when passing through the atmosphere and which now rests on the Earth's surface is the meteorite.