[Chad Fairbanks]

So which is it? An asteroid, or a meteorite?

[blam]

"So which is it? An asteroid, or a meteorite?"

Sounds like the jury is still out, huh?

[prisoner6]

Just to calrify to everyone...

A meteor is a meteor. A >relatively< small chuck of rock. An asteroid is a >relatively< large chucnk of rock.

A meteorite is a meteor AFTER it impacts the Earth. prisoner6

[P8riot]

I always wondered why they called them Hemmorhoids, and not Asteroids.

[HighWheeler]

Meteoroids and asteroids are the same thing, just the size differentiates them. There are different "standards" of size to differentiate them depending on to whom you are talking.

A meteoriod becomes a meteor when it enters Earth's atmosphere. Once it impacts, it is called a meteorite.

Here is a great image of Eros the asteroid, which is about 21 miles by 8 miles by 8 miles.

NEAR's multispectral imaging camera captured this sequence from a distance of 4620 miles (7700 km). The images of Eros were acquired every 15 degrees of rotation for one Eros "day", which is 5.27 hours long. Eros's overall shape has been compared to a boat, a shoe, a peanut, and a banana with a bite taken out of it. This sequence of images is the first to show the major geographic features of the northern and equatorial latitudes of Eros.

One of the most recent close calls occurred on March 23, 1989, when an asteroid 0.25 mile (0.4 kilometer) wide came within 400,000 miles (640,000 kilometers) of Earth. Surprised scientists estimated that Earth and the asteroid - weighing 50 million tons and traveling at 46,000 mph (74,000 kilometers per hour) -had passed the same point in space just six hours apart!