The difference between asteroids and meteors often confuses ordinary people. Not infrequently people think the two are the same.
Basically, asteroids and meteors are two things outer space which has a shape and texture like stone.
Although both have similar shapes and textures, they are actually very different. Asteroids have other names planet minor with a fairly large size. While the meteor is a fragment of a meteorite that fell to Earth.
Careful! This is the difference between asteroids and meteors
There are many objects in outer space. Starting from planets, stars, moons, and so on.
You may also often hear the term meteor, meteoroid, or meteorite. The object is actually the same, only the name is different.
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Meteors are also often mistaken for asteroid twins. However, the two are very different. Asteroids are much larger than meteors.
Because basically, meteors are only a small part of the meteoroids that enter Earth. While the asteroid, its size is very large.
The evidence for the fall from an asteroid to Earth is millions of years old. In contrast to meteors that often fall to Earth and do not produce catastrophic extinctions.
Therefore, the most common difference between asteroids and meteors is their size.
Understanding Asteroids
As discussed above, an asteroid is an object in the form of rock. Asteroids have the nickname minor planets because they orbit the Sun.
The size of asteroids is also still smaller than planets, but much larger for objects the size of space pebbles commonly called meteorites.
According to NASA, most of the asteroids on Earth solar system we are located in the region between Mars and Jupiter. There are millions of asteroids there which makes it nicknamed the asteroid belt area.
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Even so, many asteroids are also moving locations. For example, some asteroids can orbit the Sun. Their orbital path is usually what brings the asteroid close to Earth.
Because of this large size, the fall of an asteroid to Earth is tantamount to a major disaster. Researchers have found some evidence of the fall of steroids hundreds of millions of years ago.
In fact, the fall of this asteroid became one of the causes of the extinction of ancient life, such as the dinosaurs.
The asteroid that fell billions of years ago left an object in the form of a crater which is evidence of how powerful the fall was at that time.
The craters are tens of kilometers in size. Can you imagine how big the falling rock is?
Definition of Meteor
To know the difference between asteroids and meteors, of course, it is not enough just to study asteroids.
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Meteors are debris from an asteroid that enters Earth’s atmosphere. Unlike asteroids, meteors often enter Earth on a low scale.
Meteor falls tend not to be life threatening. Meteors that enter and burn in the atmosphere will look like flashes of light.
If you see a ‘shooting star’ in the night sky, it is not a real star, but a meteor moving in the atmosphere.
However, of course there are also meteors that do not burn completely in the atmosphere and fall to the Earth’s surface.
Usually this meteor will be hot rock and give the remnants of the fall due to its extraordinary speed.
Meteors and meteorites are actually the same. Meteorids will become meteors when they successfully enter the Earth’s atmosphere and reach the surface.
NASA’s Johnson Space Center even has a large collection of meteors from various locations on the Earth’s surface.
Meteors are even the best research objects to find out the origin of the formation of the universe.
That’s because meteors come from the remains of the formation of the universe nearly 4.6 billion years ago.
For this reason, the fall of meteorites to the face of the Earth is often used as an object of close research which is also the difference between asteroids and other meteors. This asteroid research can only be done remotely.
Meteor shower events have also occurred in Indonesia a few years ago. At that time, a meteor fell on one of the residents’ houses, destroying it.
In fact, you can easily tell the difference between asteroids and meteors by the size of the two. It is impossible for asteroids to fall to Earth, but the pieces of them that make it into the atmosphere are called meteors. (R10 / HR-Online / Editor-Ndu)
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