Download The Meteor/Meteorite DART

Shooting Stars
Instructions
• Fill in the missing gaps in the text below. Work in pairs and discuss each gap
before filling it in.
• Fill in the three missing labels on the illustration that follows the text.
Have you ever seen ________ stars streaking across the night sky? They’re
actually not stars at all. Called meteors by scientists, they are caused by bits of
rock in space called meteoroids. As the ________ travels around the sun at
about 18 miles per second, thousands of meteoroids cross its path. These
meteoroids
the earth’s atmosphere so fast that friction with the air causes
them to burn up. Heat from this interaction causes both the falling object and the
air to glow. This brief glowing creates the streak of light we call a ________ star,
or meteor.
Many meteors __________ completely in their violent passage through the air.
Sometimes, though, a portion survives and reaches the surface of the earth,
making a _________. A piece of space rock that lands on the earth this way is
called a meteorite.
Because the moon has no atmosphere to burn up meteoroids, it has lots of
impact craters. The earth’s atmosphere _________ it from all but the biggest
meteorites, so the earth has far fewer _________.
To summarize, a meteoroid from space that enters the earth’s atmosphere
becomes a meteor. If part of it survives its passage through the ________ and
lands on the surface of the earth, it is called a ____________.
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Fill in the three blank labels with the correct terms.
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