Meteoroid, meteor and meteorite

Not the same as an asteroid

The terms do not simply describe different size classes. What matters is the location and phenomenon: a body in space, a streak of light or recovered material.

One object, three different terms

A meteoroid is the natural solid body while it still travels through interplanetary space. A meteor is not the object but the luminous phenomenon produced during rapid atmospheric flight by heated gas, ionised air and ablated material.

A particularly bright meteor is called a fireball; bolide is used inconsistently for very bright or exploding events. If material survives and lands, the recovered remainder is a meteorite.

Size terms and dark flight

Boundaries between dust, micrometeoroid, meteoroid and small asteroid are conventions that scientific usage has refined more than once. The essential distinction is that asteroid or meteoroid names a body, while meteor names the visible event.

After deceleration below the speed that sustains a bright plasma phenomenon, dark flight begins. Wind, shape, mass and fragmentation then determine the strewn field in which meteorites may be searched for.