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Explain what a meteorite is

 A meteoroid is a small particle from a comet or asteroid.[1][2] A meteoroid is significantly smaller than an asteroid, ranging from small grains to 1 meter wide.[3][4][5][6]

The visible streak of light from space debris is the result of heat as it enters a planet's atmosphere, and the trail of glowing particles that it sheds in its wake is called a meteor, or colloquially a "shooting star" or "falling star". A series of many meteors appearing seconds or minutes apart, and appearing to originate from the same fixed point in the sky, are called a meteor shower. The root word meteor comes from the Greek meteĊros, meaning "suspended in the air". Objects larger than several meters can explode in the air and create damage. If a meteoroid, comet or asteroid withstands ablation from its atmospheric entry and impacts with the ground, then it is called a meteorite.

Around 15,000 tonnes of meteoroids, micrometeoroids and different forms of space dust enter Earth's atmosphere each year

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Meteorites are fragments of rock and/or metal that fall to Earth from space. Having broken away from a larger extraterrestrial body, meteorites can measure anything from a fraction of a millimetre to the size of a football pitch and bigger. 

Captured by Earth's gravitational force, they are accelerated to speeds of over 11.2 kilometres per second. As they enter Earth's thick atmosphere they slow rapidly due to the friction and glow, flashing across the sky like a firework, before finally crashing to the ground. 

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