Asteroid? Not a meteorite? Are they just trying the sound dramatic?
You beat me to it. Sounds like they're trying to be dramatic.
yeah it does sound dramatic.
I think what's got them exercised is how close the thing came and that that they saw late but in real time.
sort of like thousands of years ago when they first started farming and realized their crops depended on the seasons and then began to wonder if spring would return...
No, asteroid is the correct term. It would remain correct if it were the size of a grain of sand, though it'd admittedly sound a little silly.
Oh, and because I'm an engineer:
Meteoroid: a rock in space
Meteor: A space rock entering the atmosphere
Meteorite: A space rock that has hit the ground.
Nope. Did not hit the Earth.
Meteoroid? Yes, 'cause is flew by.
It's not a meteor unless it enters the atmosphere.
No. They are being accurate. It is not a meteorite till it reaches the earth.
Pronunciation: 'mE-tE-&-"rIt
Function: noun
: a meteor that reaches the surface of the earth without being completely vaporized
Since it didn't enter the atmosphere it remained a METEOR! I have it on good authority that one astromomer's Ass troid is another's meteor!
Yes. Asteroid sounds a lot scarier than meteorite.
By definition a meteorite is an airborne natural object that has burned through the atmosphere to come to rest on our planet's surface; a meteor is any object coursing within our atmosphere and an asteroid is a rock flying about without our atmosphere, I believe.