You might have heard many phrases on Tuesday, including meteoroid, meteor, and meteorite.
Meteorologist Katie McGraw breaks down the lingo.
A meteoroid typically burns up before entering the Earth's atmosphere.
Meteoroids can be pieces broken off asteroids.
Meteor showers are multiple meteors flying by simultaneously and usually occur around a comet.
They could look like shooting stars.
Meteorites vary in size once they hit the Earth's surface.
What happened?
It may have shaken your house, or you may have seen its streak shining across the sky Tuesday morning: a meteor that came crashing down to Earth in fragments in Northeast Ohio.
RELATED: NASA confirms meteor caused loud boom across Northeast Ohio
According to NASA, the fireball, caused by an asteroid, was nearly 6 feet in diameter and weighed about 7 tons before breaking up into fragments that landed across Medina County.
Dr. Ralph Harvey, a professor specializing in planetary science at Case Western Reserve University, told Clay LePard that meteors hit the Earth quite often — a couple times a day on average — but it's rare that it traveled over such a populated area.
"It was at a very high altitude when it hit the atmosphere," Harvey said. "This is obviously an object somewhere in the size between an engine block and full blown car that hit the earth's atmosphere heading from north to south and flew over our area."
He said the chances of it hitting something are pretty slim.
"At this moment in time, the people in that area are very lucky people. I hope everybody that goes out on a dog walk or strolling through the fields or the parking lot, I hope they're all keeping their eyes open for a rock that looks out of place," Harvey said. "Rocks can't handle that pressure very well, so it blew up and made this beautiful fireball."
