Ronan, Sullivan, and Loomis 1

Nick, Tom, and Maddie

Wooten

Freshman Science: Summary

6 April 2010

Meteors

A meteor is a bright line of light that flies through the sky. Millions of meteoroids enter

the earth every day, and on any night a 3-4 meteors can be seen every hour. Meteoroids become

visible to the human eye between 40 and 70 miles above the earth. Some people call them

shooting stars, or falling stars. However, meteors are not stars at all, so this is incorrect. A meteor

happens when a particle or chunk of matter, a meteoroid, enters the earth’s atmosphere from

outer space. Most meteoroids range from the size of a grain of sand to a baseball. Air friction

heats up the meteoroid, causing it to glow, and reaching about 3,000 degrees. Most meteoroids

light up for a second. The difference between a meteoroid and a meteor is that a meteoroid enters

the earth’s atmosphere, while a meteor doesn’t. Meteoroids continue into the earth’s atmosphere

because they are the right size to enter the atmosphere. When meteoroids enter the earth,

sometimes they don’t disintegrate until 6 miles above the earth. Most meteoroids disintegrate

before they enter too far into the earth’s atmosphere, but some of them leave a trail of light that

can last up for minutes. Most meteoroids travel at 26 miles per second; the earth travels 18 miles

per second.