Question

What term specifically describes small chunks of rocks and debris in space that burn up in Earth’s atmosphere?

Answer 1

Term specifically describes small chunks of rocks and debris in space that burn up in Earth’s atmosphere is :

Meteors

Explanation:

• A meteor is a meteoroid or a particle broken off an asteroid or comet orbiting the Sun – that burns up as it enters the Earth's atmosphere, creating the effect of a "shooting star".
• Meteoroids that reach the Earth's surface without disintegrating are called meteorites.
• Due to Earth's escape velocity, the minimum impact velocity is 11 km/s with asteroid impacts averaging around 17 km/s on the Earth. The most probable impact angle is 45 degrees.
• Meteoroids have a pretty big size range. They include any space debris bigger than a molecule and smaller than about 330 feet space debris bigger than this is considered an asteroid.
• But most of the debris the Earth comes in contact with is "dust" shed by comets traveling through the solar system.
• The surface of a meteorite is generally very smooth and featureless, but often has shallow depressions and deep cavities resembling clearly visible thumbprints
• Most iron meteorites, like the example at right, have well-developed regmaglypts all over their surface.