A meteoroid is a small solid object traveling through space. One that enters the earth's atmosphere loses its "oid" and becomes a meteor. Once a meteoroid enters the atmosphere the heat produced by the friction will give off a bright glow visible to the naked eye. And most burn up before striking the earth or exiting the atmosphere.
I'm no astronomer, I simply read the definition at this dictionary. But what brings this to the front is the headline in the morning paper:
And that makes one wonder just what a "meteoric rise" is. Oil production has certainly been climbing of late. But the metaphoric meteor is rather ominous. Most likely, the headline writer simply pulled up a newsy cliche without putting much thought into it.
But if she had thought it through, she might have envisioned a flaming meteor streaking toward the earth, visible for an instant, then either crashing into the earth or simply disappearing. Either way, the metaphor isn't very encouraging to people in the oil business.
Meanwhile, take a look a this chart. What does that look like?
It looks less like a meteor than a needle in search of a balloon. Chart source.
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