Meteor, Meteorite, Meteoroid

1.) Meteoroid: sand-boulder size of debris in space
     Meteor: visinble path of a meteoroid entering Earth's atmosphere
                  *shooting star or falling star
    Meteorite: if a meteoroid survives the fall and impact of falling to Earth
2.) Root word "meteor" is Greek "meteoros" meaning ""high in the air""
3.) Meteroids, Meteorits, and Meteors are sometimes called "Interplanetary Dust"
4.) Sometimes a meteorite may leave an impact on where it landed, but evaporates so that there are no meteorites left
5.) Most meteoroids burn up during the fall through Earth's atmosphere.
     These can cause weather changes for several months.
6.) Meteors become visble at about 40-75 miles (65-120 kilometers) above Earth
7.) Peeksill Meteor: one of most famous meteor/meteorites
                  * October 9, 1992
                  * started over West Virginia
                  * broke up over Kentucky
                  * seen over major cities like Pittsburgh
                  * damaged parked Chevrolet Malibu in Peeksill, New York
                  * traveled northeast
                  * pronounced greenish color
                  * covered approx. 700-800 kilometers
                  * seen for over 40 seconds
8.) Possible colors:
                  * orange/yellow = sodium
                  * yellow = iron
                  * blue/green = copper
                  * purple = potassium
                  * red = silicate
9.) Until early 19th century, meteors were not known as astonomical phenomenons
                  * Thomas Jefferson wrote,"I would more easily believe that a Yankee professor would lie than that stones would fall from heaven."
                  *November 1833: attracted astronomers attention
                  * people all over eastern United States witnessed thousands of meteors radiating from one point in the sky
10.) Stictly speaking, meteroids do not "crash into" earth, but earth sweeps through their paths
                  * Our planet travels at approx. 30 km/s around its orbit, collecting meteors much in the same way a moving vehicle's windowshield collects insects

~ZABC*A~