On Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at 5:44:28 AM UTC-4, occam wrote in alt.usage.english:
Why can't rockets be considered meteors? Even flying horizontally on the moon?
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Rockets aren't meteors because of the definition of meteor:
a. any of the small particles of matter in the solar system that are directly observable only by their incandescence from frictional heating on entry into the atmosphere
b: the streak of light produced by the passage of a meteor
I suspect that the metaphor "meteoric" comes from the second definition.
Cindy Hamilton
That's just the thing, when does a rocket or spacecraft meet the definition of meteor?
When it has an uncontrolled reentry on another planet. On earth it is just littering from the sky.
On Sunday, October 24, 2021 at 5:18:38 PM UTC-4, Snidely wrote in alt.usage.english:
Burning? The burning of the entire space craft itself or just of its engine for propulsion?
I looked it up again to be sure I was right - memory at my age you know.
Per Encyclopedia Britannica:
It is a meteor. A meteor is the streak of light that you see in the sky when a small piece of cometary or asteroidal material enters the atmosphere at high speed and burns up because of the frictional heating from the piece?s collision with the atoms and molecules in the atmosphere. Before the small bit of comet or asteroid enters Earth?s atmosphere, it floats through interplanetary space and is called a meteoroid.
Most meteoroids that enter the atmosphere burn up completely as meteors. In some cases, however, the meteoroid does not completely burn up, and the object actually makes it to Earth?s surface. The chunk that has survived its fiery journey is called a meteorite. A small body starts its life as a meteoroid floating through space between the planets until it makes a bright streak of light in Earth?s atmosphere as a meteor and then, if it isn?t consumed by frictional heating, finally lands on the ground as a meteorite.
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