![]() The visible light produced by a meteor may take on various hues, depending on the chemical composition of the meteoroid, and the speed of its movement through the atmosphere.There are three main types of meteors in terms of composition: stones, irons, and stony-irons. Though meteors can sometimes contain frozen water and other material from broken-up comets, they tend to be more rocky and metallic.Still, they remain an atmospheric phenomenon, and retain their name “meteor”. With Giovanni Schiaparelli’s success in connecting the Leonids (as they are now called) with comet Tempel-Tuttle, the cosmic origin of meteors was firmly established. The astronomer Denison Olmsted made an extensive study of this storm, and concluded that it had a cosmic origin. Silliman believed the meteor had a cosmic origin, but meteors did not attract much attention from astronomers until the spectacular meteor storm of November 1833. In 1807, a meteorite that fell in Weston, Connecticut was investigated by Yale University chemistry professor Benjamin Silliman.Prior to that, they were seen in the West as an atmospheric phenomenon, like lightning, and were not connected with strange stories of rocks falling from the sky. Although meteors have been known since ancient times, they were not known to be an astronomical phenomenon until early in the nineteenth century.Meteors are usually visible while in the Earth’s mesosphere at between 76 and 120 kilometers (250,000 to 330,000 ft) above the ground.Friction creates heat, and enough heat can create a fiery ball of rock that can be seen from the Earth. It creates a line or a streak of light across the sky for a moment as it burns up due to its high speed and friction with the atmosphere. A meteor is a small rock (less than 1 meter across) that is falling through the Earth’s atmosphere after being heated to incandescence by collisions with air molecules in the upper atmosphere.Meteoroids are pieces of asteroid that broke off, and when a meteoroid comes close enough to Earth and enters Earth’s atmosphere, it vaporizes and turns into a meteor. Meteors are types of space rocks and are different from meteoroids.See the fact file below for more information on the meteor or alternatively, you can download our 22-page Meteor worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment. It therefore makes perfect sense for a rock falling to Earth, because when it makes its shooting-star streak, it certainly is high in the air. The word ‘meteor’ comes from the Greek word meteoros which means ‘high in the air’.
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