Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A solid body, moving in space, that is smaller than an asteroid and at least as large as a speck of dust.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A body traveling in space, and of the same nature as those which on entering the earth's atmosphere become visible as meteors.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Astron.) A small body moving through space, or revolving about the sun, which on entering the earth's atmosphere would be deflagrated and appear as a meteor.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun astronomy A
relatively small (sand - toboulder -sized)fragment ofdebris in asolar system that produces ameteor when it hits theatmosphere
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (astronomy) any of the small solid extraterrestrial bodies that hits the earth's atmosphere
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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A meteoroid is matter revolving around the sun or any object in interplanetary space that is too small to be called an asteroid or a comet.
Cosmic Projectiles 2008
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Once this space material starts falling toward Earth, it's called a meteoroid, and when it penetrates the Earth's atmosphere, it becomes a meteor, which is the term used to describe the visible "shooting star" portion.
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Meteoroid: A meteoroid is a solid piece of interplanetary debris moving through space.
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A meteor appears when a particle or chunk of metallic or stony matter called a meteoroid enters Earth's atmosphere from outer space.
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Of course, both men are wrong, since a meteoroid is a rock traveling through space, a meteor is a rock that burns up in our atmosphere, and a rock that actually hits Earth's surface is a meteor ite.
Locus Online News 2009
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Of course, both men are wrong, since a meteoroid is a rock traveling through space, a meteor is a rock that burns up in our atmosphere, and a rock that actually hits Earth's surface is a meteor ite.
Locus Online News 2009
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A "shooting star" is the common name for the visible path of a meteoroid, which is a small particle of debris from the Solar system that enters the Earth's atmosphere.
The Times of India 2008
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We may as well define the terms "meteoroid" and "asteroid" as well.
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We may as well define the terms "meteoroid" and "asteroid" as well.
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In the opening scenes of the film, when everyone believes that the downed flying saucer was actually a large rock from space, learned astronomer Ted Lewis (McCormack) refers to it as a "meteoroid" while the ignorant policeman Vernon (Robert Patrick) dismisses it as a "meteor."
Locus Online News 2009
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