space girl comic
you probably learned in primary school that it’s a “meteoroid” when it’s in space, “meteor” when it’s falling down to earth, and “meteorite” when it’s splattered itself across your backyard.
personally i think we should change these three terms to “space rock”, “firey space rock”, and “ex-space rock” for clarity’s sake.
dini: ooh, make a wish! th-that’s a shooting star, right?!
sedna: yeah, but the name is super misleading! first of all, they aren’t stars, they’re space rocks burning up in the atmosphere! secondly, they aren’t really “shooting”, they’re technically falling! people should just call them “meteors”!
sedna: i wish i wasn’t annoying!
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I generally tell people (in my planetarium job) that in space it’s a meteoroid; the bright streak when that rock is plummeting through the air is a meteor; after it lands on Earth, it’s a meteorite; and when folks bring in strange rocks to me to examine, thinking they’re meteorites, they’re nearly always meteorwrongs.