What are “shooting stars”?
April 2008—In the early morning darkness on April 15, 1912, as the R.M.S. Titanic was sinking in the freezing Atlantic, survivors witnessed a large number of streaking lights in the sky, which many believed to be the souls of their drowning loved ones passing to heaven. Says Kevin Luhman, what they most likely were seeing was the peak of the Lyriad meteor shower, an annual event occuring in mid-to-late April. Though folklore of many cultures describes shooting or falling stars as rare events, “they’re hardly rare or even stars,” says Luhman, Penn State assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics. “From the dawn of civilization people have seen these streaks of light that looked like stars, but were moving quickly across the sky,” he notes. “These ‘shooting stars’ are actually space rocks—meteoroids—made visible by the heat generated when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds.” These bits of ice and debris range in size from a speck of sand to a boulder. Larger objects
Shooting stars are mostly grit from space colliding at very high speed with air molecules high up in the sky. As Earth travels in its orbit around the sun it runs into clouds of grit generally pulverized rock that also orbits the sun. Many shooting stars are produced by grit no larger than a grain of sand. Some of the more spectacular ones are pea-sized and the really stunning (but very rare) fireballs are the size of an orange or larger. These objects collide with air molecules some 60 miles (95 kilometers) above Earth’s surface and, due to their very high speed, they begin to glow white hot. We see a streak of light as they burn up. The scientific name is meteor but shooting star will do fine (just tell the kids that they are not really stars). As Earth slowly rotates, the side facing the direction of its orbit around the sun tends to run into more grit. This direction is directly overhead at dawn (at right angles to the sun) and this is why there tends to be at least twice as many s
“Shooting stars” and “falling stars” are both names that people have used for many hundreds of years to describe meteors — intense streaks of light across the night sky caused by small bits of interplanetary rock and debris called meteoroids crashing and burning high in Earth’s upper atmosphere. Traveling at thousands of miles an hour, meteoroids quickly ignite in searing friction of the atmosphere, 30 to 80 miles above the ground. Almost all are destroyed in this process; the rare few that survive and hit the ground are known as meteorites. When a meteor appears, it seems to “shoot” quickly across the sky, and its small size and intense brightness might make you think it is a star. If you’re lucky enough to spot a meteorite (a meteor that makes it all the way to the ground), and see where it hits, it’s easy to think you just saw a star “fall.” How can I best view a meteor shower? If you live near a brightly lit city, drive away from the glow of city lights and toward the constellatio
In the early morning darkness on April 15, 1912, as the R.M.S. Titanic was sinking in the freezing Atlantic, survivors witnessed a large number of streaking lights in the sky, which many believed to be the souls of their drowning loved ones passing to heaven. Says Kevin Luhman, what they most likely were seeing was the peak of the Lyriad meteor shower, an annual event occuring in mid-to-late April. Though folklore of many cultures describes shooting or falling stars as rare events, “they’re hardly rare or even stars,” says Luhman, Penn State assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics. “From the dawn of civilization people have seen these streaks of light that looked like stars, but were moving quickly across the sky,” he notes. “These ‘shooting stars’ are actually space rocks—meteoroids—made visible by the heat generated when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds.” These bits of ice and debris range in size from a speck of sand to a boulder. Larger objects are called
There are many different sizes of rocks that can be found in space. As the Earth revolves around the Sun, it will be exposed to some of the rocks that come in its path. When these rocks collide with the Earth’s atmosphere (at great velocities), they begin to heat up due to air friction. Because of the high temperature produced from the air friction, they start to glow and then burn up. This is what we observe in the sky (at night) which appears to us as a glowing star moving across the sky. This trail of light is short-lived and vanishes in few a seconds. This also happens during daytime but we cannot see it because they are too dim in the sunlight. This glowing (burning) rock is called a meteor or what we commonly call a shooting or falling star. A meteoroid is that debris found outside the atmosphere. A meteoroid can range from the size of a grain of sand up to a boulder. Meteoroids are composed of stone, iron, or a mixture of stone and iron. If a meteor goes through the Earth’s atmo
