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Meteoroid, meteor, meteorite: What was that shooting star I saw last night? Host: Regina Barber/NPR Producers: @catiedull · Catie Dull/NPR | NPR

When a meteor enters Earth’s atmosphere, it’s moving at incredible speeds—often tens of thousands of miles per hour. This rapid motion compresses the air in front of it, generating intense heat that can reach several thousand degrees. That heat causes the meteor to glow brilliantly, producing the bright streak we recognize as a “shooting star.” As it blazes through the sky, the meteor begins to lose its outer layers in a process called ablation, where the intense heat causes the material to vapo