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A meteor, known colloquially as a shooting star, is a glowing streak of a small body going through Earth's atmosphere, after being heated to incandescence by collisions with air molecules in the upper atmosphere, creating a streak of light via its rapid motion and sometimes also by shedding glowing material in its wake. Meteors typically occur in the mesosphere at altitudes from 76–100 kilometres. The root word meteor comes from the Greek μετεωρίτης (meteōrítēs), meaning "high in the air".