Fireballs fall on the Earth every day—but the one that just streaked across the southeastern U.S. this week was unlike the rest. Here’s why.

A fireball that streaked across the sky over Georgia was identified as a large meteor, and a piece of the space debris crashed through the roof of a home.

To clarify terminology: a meteoroid is a space rock traveling through space. Once it enters Earth's atmosphere and burns brightly, it's called a meteor. If it survives the fiery descent and reaches the ground, it becomes a meteorite —as in the case of the Henry County specimen.