with larger chunks of comet debris becoming fireballs The blue map tracks their position in the skies over our planet with the main showers highlighted in white circles A second radar map looks at ...

a meteoroid and an asteroid? It’s all about location and size. Roughly speaking, an asteroid is a relatively small body (that isn’t a comet), usually rocky or metallic, composed of dirt and ice.

A meteoroid is a small rock, measuring anywhere between a grain of sand to a boulder, that breaks off from a comet or asteroid. These become a meteor when they vaporise in the Earth’s atmosphere.