Final answer:
Meteors, which are tiny particles from space moving at high speeds, burn up in the Mesosphere, creating the phenomena known as shooting stars. Only on rare occasions do fragments survive to become meteorites.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Mesosphere vaporizes meteors most of the time before they hit the ground. These tiny solid particles enter Earth's atmosphere from interplanetary space and move at such high speeds that friction with air causes them to burn up, often at altitudes between 80 and 130 kilometers.
This fiery interaction produces the brief flashes of light we see as shooting stars in the night sky. On the rare occasions that these meteoroids survive their journey through the atmosphere and reach the ground, they are called meteorites.