A
Meteoroid is a smaller piece of a
comet or
asteroid that has broken off and is floating into space.
When a meteoroid gets close to a planet, it will burn up in the sky.
The burning up is very bright, and it's what we call a
shooting star or
meteor.
![shooting star](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/Leonid_Meteor.jpg/320px-Leonid_Meteor.jpg)
(from: wikipedia -
meteoroid)