Stars are huge balls of burning gas sending off great amounts of energy in the form of light and heat. Stars are much bigger than our planet. Our sun is a star. A falling star is a meteor. Meteors are streaks of light in the sky that we can see when a small speck of dust burns up high in the air above us.
Meteoroids are usually smaller than a grain of sand.
Some meteoroids are bigger but most are tiny. Meteoroids hit the Earth's atmosphere at super high speed, sometimes faster than 90,000 miles per hour. The dust speck that burns up is called a meteoroid. The flash of light is called a meteor. Meteors usually last just a second or two.