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Meteoroids The Asteroid Belt
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The Inner Planets
The Outer Planets
The
Sun
The Moon
Meteoroids The Asteroid Belt
Comets
The Constellations
The
Stars Solar System Games
Return to Homepage
What is a meteoroid?
A piece of solid rock floating in space that is much smaller than an asteroid. It is usually the size of a pebble on Earth.
What is a meteoroid made of?
Meteoroids are made of rock and ice.
What does a meteoroid look like when it enters Earth's atmosphere?
A meteoroid will heat up and glow when it enters the Earth's atmosphere. Usually they burn up in the atmosphere causing a meteor shower to happen. This event is sometimes referred to as a Shooting Star. A meteoroid are small particles in space. When a meteoroid enters Earth's atmosphere then it is called a meteor. When a meteor does not burn up in Earth's atmosphere and also strikes Earth it is called a meteorite.
Meteoroids comes in different sizes ranging from a tiny particle called a micrometeoroid to the largest ones about the size of grapes. All of the meteoroids form a cloud called the Zodiacal Cloud. The Zodiacal Cloud weighs about 10 trillion tons.
What is the largest meteoroid ever found?
The largest meteoroid ever found was the Hoba Iron Meteoroid. It currently weighs 66 tons.
What do the orbits of Meteoroids look like?
Most meteoroids travel in a pack and have different orbits. The fastest speed of a meteoroid was 42 kilometers per hour.
Sources:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=meteoroid
http://www.pibburns.com/catastro/meteoric.htm
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/solar_system_level2/meteoroids.html
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/meteor/meteoroid.shtml
Images From:
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/headline_universe/images/perseidssm.jpg
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/Meteorite/images/HobaIronMeteorite.jpg
