fireball

astronomy

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June 26, 2026

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A fireball is a brilliant meteor that may trail bright sparks. Meteors are the result of meteoroids colliding with Earth's atmosphere at high velocity. This collision causes intense frictional heating, making the meteoroid glow and appear as a streak of light, often called a "shooting star".1234

Unusually bright meteors are termed fireballs or bolides. These luminous phenomena are caused by objects ranging from the size of a grain of sand to those weighing up to a ton. Most meteoroids burn up completely in the atmosphere, but if any part survives and lands on Earth, it is called a meteorite.234

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meteor and meteoroid
Measurement of meteoroid orbits
…photographing very bright meteors, or fireballs. These networks were designed to provide all-sky coverage of meteors over about a million square kilometres of Earth’s surface. Three such networks were developed—the Prairie Network in the central United States, the MORP (Meteorite Observation and Recovery Project) network in the Prairie Provinces of…
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…photographing very bright meteors, or fireballs. These networks were designed to provide all-sky coverage of meteors over about a million square kilometres of Earth’s surface. Three such networks were developed—the Prairie Network in the central United States, the MORP (Meteorite Observation and Recovery Project) network in the Prairie Provinces of…
Read More