What is an asteroid, a planetoid, a meteoroid?
Meteors are just bits of dust or rocks from space that get sucked into the Earth’s gravitational pull when they come to close to it. As they enter our atmosphere and plummet towards the ground, they burn up, usually about 60 miles before they get close enough to hit you in the head. When the meteors burn up, we on the ground can sometimes see the brief flash of light. This is what people call “shooting stars.” Usually, the “space dust” that make meteors comes from the tails of passing comets. Every once in a while, a meteor will be big enough to weather its fiery descent and land on Earth, where it earns the title “meteorite.” Asteroids are also known as “minor planets.” They are made up of much of the same stuff as planets, but they are much smaller. The four largest known are spherical or ball-shaped, like the Earth, and have diameters of between 100 and 500 miles. A diameter is an imaginary line running from one side of a circle or sphere through the center to the other side. In com
