What is the difference between an asteroid, meteoroid, meteor and meteorite?
These are various names of leftover rocks in our Solar System. They are a little like comets, but without the gasses. They are ‘leftover’ in that they didn’t become part of a star, planet or moon, but continue to remain in orbit around the Sun. Asteroids are bigger chunks of rock and metal, sometimes getting up to the size of our Moon. A meteoroid is a very small asteroid, even getting down to the size of a sand grain or so. A meteor is a meteoroid that is burning up due to the air friction experienced as it crashes into our atmosphere. A meteorite is whatever is left over, on the ground, if the meteor survives entry through our atmosphere.
