Today's lesson - The difference between Meteors, meteorites, and meteoroids (and asteroids and comets too)

Following on from yesterday's news about the brand spanking new meteorite crater in south west Egypt (5,000 years old is fairly new if you're a 4 billion year old planet), I thought it would be nice and informative of me to explain the difference between a meteor, a meteorite, a meteoroid, a comet and an asteroid.
Now if you're a cosmochemist (greatest job title in the world (unless of course you're Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary http://tiny.cc/6r4m2 (or a Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of Arms in Ordinary http://tiny.cc/irqa4))) you'll know the difference between a meteor and a meteorite and all that other space jazz, but if you're not then here it is: -

Asteroid: An asteroid is a relatively small (relative to a planet that is, but still sometimes 21 miles long) inactive celestial body composed of rock, carbon or metal that orbits the sun.
They sometimes gather in clusters called Asteroid belts, the closest asteroid belt is in-between Mars and Jupiter.
Interesting fact, Earth should be regularly pummelled by asteroids due to the gravitational pull of the Sun but is prevented by the huge mass of Jupiter

Comet: Similar to Asteroids, comets are relatively small but mostly comprised of rock and Ice. They highly recognisable and distinguished by the Dust and Gas tails seen trailing behind them when they're close to the sun. 
If you want to see the most famous comet, Halley's comet the next time it makes an appearance, make sure you're not busy or dead 28 July 2061.

Meteoroid: A meteoroid comes from an asteroid and is a small particle that orbits the sun. they can be fairly big, but mostly they're tiny bits of space debris.

This is a meteor, they're frickin' awesome!

Meteor: A meteor starts out as an asteroid, they're space rocks that enter Earth's atmosphere and get burned up by particles surrounding earth which leave spectacular trails behind them. In fact - The term meteor comes from the Greek meteoron, meaning phenomenon in the sky.

Meteorite: Most meteorites don't look this kick ass, but occasionally they do and mess loads of stuff up, like our poles for instance, our poles used to be nice and regular, till a big ol' meteorite turned up and knocked us of our axis and gave us our seasons. 
This picture shows the point where a meteor stops being a meteor and becomes a meteorite, when it hits a planet.
Meteorites are so big they don't burn up when they enter Earth's atmosphere, they just plough straight and make craters and excite cosmochemists and physics teachers. 

Google earth discovers Earth's freshest meteor crater

Google Earth... Maybe I'm the only one, but don't we take it for granted?
It literally is a map of the whole world! and it's available to anyone, for free, at any time(no i'm not sponsored by google i just happen to appreciate google earth).
Anyway, some people were looking at the satellite image feeds from google earth and found this. A meteorite crater, perhaps the freshest meteorite crater on Earth in fact.
The 45 metre wide crater was discovered in autumn of 2008 although Luigi Folco, a cosmochemist at the university of Sienna, said that the crater has been known about since the 70's but that no significant research had been made up until now.
 Expeditions to the site, which is in south west Egypt, have discovered over 5,000 individual iron meteorites, fragments of the original, which collectively weigh roughly1.7 tons. It's estimated that the original meteorite was a 5-10 metric ton lump of Iron which hit the ground at speeds of roughly 3.5 kilometres a second (just to put in that in perspective, in the time it would take you to watch The Godfather(GREAT FILM) this meteorite would have gone all the way around the world and back again, 40000km in 3 hours) causing most of the meteorite to vaporise on impact.
Analysis of nearby soil samples at the site suggest that the collision occurred within the last 10,000 years but probably no more than 5,000 years ago says Folco.

So if you have nothing to do at home tonight, try trawling google earth for meteorite sights and make yourself famous, but only amongst cosmochemists and physics teachers.