A small body moving in the solar system that would become a meteor if it entered the earth's atmosphere.
‘The term ‘space debris’ in its largest sense includes all naturally occurring remains of solar and planetary processes: interplanetary dust, meteoroids, asteroids, and comets.’
‘Once the meteoroids enter the Earth's atmosphere, they are known as meteors and become visible due to the friction caused by air molecules slamming against the surface of the high-velocity particle.’
‘It is probably natural to think of meteorites - as the meteoroids that fall to Earth are called - as threatening, even dangerous, phenomena.’
‘Whether a meteoroid makes it to Earth's surface or not depends on many factors including the mass, initial velocity, angle of entry, composition, and shape of the body.’
‘However, from time to time, comets suddenly get brighter, and one possible explanation for this is that the comet has struck a small meteoroid in space; perhaps a small lump of rock, 10 cm or a metre in size.’
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