Meteoroids can range in size from as small as a grain of dust to small asteroids. When a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere and burns up, it leaves a glowing trail in the sky and is known as a meteor – or more popularly, a shooting star. These particles continue orbiting the Sun in approximately the same orbit as the parent body from which they came, and over time, they get further away from the parent as the orbit becomes littered with these particles. As fragments and debris from asteroids and comets, they are some of the smallest bodies in the Solar System. The Eta Aquariid and the Orionid meteor shower are created by the Earth's orbit passing through the trail left by Halley's comet, while the impressive Leonids are remnants of the comet Tempel-Tuttle. So, a meteor could more accurately be described as an event, rather than an object: when that tiny particle (called a meteoroid) enters the upper parts of the atmosphere and heats the air around it to incandescence. This is why we often see meteor showers at the same time every year, and meteors are more numerous on certain nights. When Earth’s orbit intersects with this debris, the result is hundreds (or thousands) of bright trails, appearing to radiate from one point in the night sky.
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