Meteor Shower Facts

Meteoroid

What are meteors, meteoroids and meteorites? Before a meteor enters our atmosphere they are called meteoroids. Most meteoroids are composed of nickel and iron and are about the size of a quarter. Ninety percent of meteoroids follow the path of comets. They are usually formed by the collisions of asteroids in our solar system. Comets that orbit our sun in our solar system have a gravitational pull. When the path of a comet crosses Earth, meteoroids that are following a comet fall into the atmosphere and become meteors and any meteor that lands on the surface of the Earth is called a meteorite.