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Meteors

Main articles: Radiation astronomy/Meteors and Meteor astronomy

This meteor image of October 17, 2012, is prior to the meteorite fall on the same day. Credit: Paola-Castillo; and Petrus M. Jenniskens, SETI Institute/NASA ARC.

A meteor is the visible path of a meteoroid that has entered the Earth's atmosphere.

Although there are many definitions of a meteor ranging from any atmospheric phenomenon to a fast-moving streak of light in the night sky caused by the entry of extraterrestrial matter into the earth's atmosphere: A shooting star or falling star, for radiation astronomy, an alternative definition is used.

Here's a theoretical definition of a meteor from a radiation point of view:

Def. any natural object radiating through a portion or all of the Earth's or another natural object's atmosphere is called a meteor.

A hypervelocity star "snow-plowing" through the interstellar medium of a galaxy is a meteor and the subject of meteor astronomy.

Meteor astronomy (radiated meteors) is radiation astronomy of large matter objects moving rapidly relative to apparently fixed objects.

A meteor may be as small as an electron. Astronomical objects that are atoms, nuclei, or subatomic particles are part of cosmic-ray astronomy.