What is the difference between an asteroid, meteor and meteorite?

The three often confused - especially when two of them flew near the Earth in the same day, as happened last Friday. LiveScience offers a quickie explanation.

Asteroids are rocky space objects smaller than planets. For them use more terms planetoids or minor planets, writes popular science website, relied on NASA.

It is believed that the remains of protoplanetarniya disk, from which are formed the planets in the solar system. Millions of asteroids circling in orbit around the sun in about 750 000 of them in asteriodniya belt between Mars and Jupiter. Some have their own satellites.

Meteor is asteroid or other object that burns at the entry into the Earth's atmosphere. They call them "shooting stars." If a meteor did not burn up completely in the atmosphere, that part of it which landed on the surface is called a meteorite . Meteorites can be iron or stone. Iron containing more than 90 metal.

The term " meteorid " (or "meteoroid ') is solid with a relatively small size, which is moving in interplanetary space. It becomes a meteor, if entered the Earth's atmosphere.

When the meteor is more visible in daylight (and, according to some definitions, sound) - as the one that exploded in the skies over Russia - the fireball resulting from the explosion is called a bolide .