From Space to Earth: The Journey of Rock, Dust, and Ice

From Space to Earth: The Journey of Rock, Dust, and Ice is an educational infographic poster that explains what asteroids, comets, meteors, and meteorites actually are, and shows exactly where on the way down each name applies.

The poster is built on a single altitude scale running from the Kármán line at 100 kilometers to the ground, divided into three stages: in space, in the atmosphere, and on Earth. Ten terms are defined in the order an object earns them. Asteroid, meteoroid, and comet apply while it is still in space. Meteor, meteor shower, fireball, bolide, and airburst describe what happens across the marked altitudes of 80, 50, and 30 kilometers, where air compression turns rock into light. Meteorite and impact crater apply only to what reaches the ground.

Around the main scale, a size chart puts the four classes of object in familiar terms: a micrometeoroid under 1 millimeter is a grain of sand, a meteoroid of 1 millimeter to 1 meter is a pea, a small asteroid of 10 meters to 1 kilometer is a bus, and a large asteroid over 1 kilometer is a mountain. A brightness chart places a fireball between Venus at magnitude -4 and the full moon at -13, with the sun at -26.7 for scale. Labeled diagrams break down the parts of a comet — nucleus, coma, dust tail, plasma tail, and hydrogen envelope — and trace how an asteroid collision produces meteoroids, how a bolide fragments into a debris field, and how an airburst sends a shockwave across a blast radius. Sources are NASA, the American Meteor Society, the European Space Agency, and Encyclopaedia Britannica.

It suits science teachers, homeschool parents, and families with a child who asks what the difference is. It also suits anyone who has stood outside for a meteor shower and wanted the right word for what they were watching. It hangs well in classrooms, studies, family rooms, and libraries.

• Size: 18"(W) x 24" (H)
• 10 mil (0.25 mm) thick
• Slightly glossy
• Fingerprint resistant
• Paper sourced from Japan
• Ayous wood .75″ (1.9 cm) thick frame from renewable forests

This product is made especially for you as soon as you place an order, which is why it takes us a bit longer to deliver it to you. Making products on demand instead of in bulk helps reduce overproduction, so thank you for making thoughtful purchasing decisions!