meteoroid

[ mee-tee-uh-roid ]

noun

, Astronomy.

1. any of the small bodies, often remnants of comets, traveling through space: when such a body enters the earth's atmosphere it is heated to luminosity and becomes a meteor.

meteoroid

/ ˈmiːtɪəˌrɔɪd /

noun

1. any of the small celestial bodies that are thought to orbit the sun, possibly as the remains of comets. When they enter the earth's atmosphere, they become visible as meteors

meteoroid

/ mē′tē-ə-roid′ /

1. A small, rocky or metallic body revolving in interplanetary space around the Sun. A meteoroid is significantly smaller than an asteroid, ranging from small grains or particles to the size of large boulders. The clustered meteoroids associated with regular annual meteor showers are believed to be very small particles of cometary debris. Meteoroids that survive their passage through the Earth's atmosphere and land as meteorites are somewhat larger, solitary bodies and are encountered in no predictable pattern.
2. See Note at meteor

Derived Forms

• ˌmeteorˈoidal, adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of meteoroid¹

First recorded in 1860–65; meteor + -oid

Example Sentences

As they hurtle towards Earth, air forces itself inside the meteoroid, increasing the pressure and causing it to explode from the inside out.

From Popular-Science

Larger meteoroids, like the roughly 55-foot diameter Chelyabinsk meteor that exploded over Russia in 2013, go through a similar yet even more destructive process.

From Popular-Science

Half a century earlier, Whipple himself had determined the orbit of the meteoroids by photographing the paths of the meteors against the sky.

From Science News

This suggests that some catastrophe hit the asteroid in the recent past and made so many meteoroids that they continue to delight meteor observers today.

From Science News

So that was actually good news then, but other kinds of leaks are mostly thought to be caused by micro meteoroids.

From MIT Technology Review