The same rock gets three names by location: a meteoroid travelling through space becomes a meteor — a shooting star — while burning through the atmosphere, and any surviving fragment on the ground is a meteorite. Most meteors are sand-grain sized and vaporise entirely at 80–120 km altitude.
Understanding Meteor / Meteorite
The Three Names
| Stage | Name | Where | What You See |
|---|---|---|---|
| In space | Meteoroid | Interplanetary space | Nothing (too small to see) |
| In atmosphere | Meteor | 80–120 km altitude | Bright streak of light (shooting star) |
| On the ground | Meteorite | Earth's surface | Recovered rock/metal fragment |
Meteor Showers
Meteor showers occur when Earth's orbit crosses the debris trail left by a comet. Each shower has a radiant point — the area of sky from which meteors appear to originate — and occurs at the same time each year. The Perseids (August, from Comet Swift-Tuttle) and Geminids (December, from asteroid Phaethon) are the most reliable, producing 60–150 visible meteors per hour under ideal conditions. These events are unrelated to space debris re-entries, which produce slower, longer-lasting fireballs.
Meteorites and Science
Meteorites are invaluable to science — they are free samples of solar system material delivered to Earth's surface. The three main types are: iron (metallic, from asteroid cores), stony (silicate, from asteroid mantles and crusts), and stony-iron (mixed). Carbonaceous chondrites are particularly prized as they contain organic molecules, water, and presolar grains older than the solar system itself. The 2023 Winchcombe meteorite (UK) was recovered within hours and found to contain amino acids and water, providing insight into how these building blocks of life may have been delivered to early Earth.