Landsat image of the Kebira Crater in the Great Sahara Desert of Egypt at the border with Libya.
People usually call a bright streak of light in the sky a meteor, a shooting star or a falling star. Very bright lights are called fireballs. The sky show is produced by the entry of a small meteoroid into Earth's atmosphere. A skywatcher under a dark clear sky might see a few per hour on an average night. On the other hand, during one of the annual meteor showers, a skywatcher might see up to 100 per hour.
Meteor. Meteors are the streaks of light associated with the burning of small chunks of rock or interplanetary debris as they arrive in Earth's atmosphere from space.
Meteoroid. The rocks and debris are known as meteoroids and often are the size of a grain of sand or smaller.
Micrometeoroid. Very fine grains of space dust are called micrometeoroids.
Micrometeoroid. Very fine grains of space dust are called micrometeoroids.
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