If you’re a passionate astronomer like many of us, it is likely that you remember the one moment in your childhood that got you started with this fascinating hobby. Maybe it was your first ever time looking through a telescope. Many of us saw the first meteoroid shower, a cloud of fire falling from the sky.
The first one is the easiest to remember. We learned eventually that the showers weren’t a threat or an invasion, with some explanations and guidance. The majority of meteoroid rains are harmless and part of nature. They can also be very entertaining to observe. What are these strange lights? Are these aliens from Mars? Are the comets threatening to bring on the next ice-age? Or, perhaps comets are going to start a new ice age? Answers to these questions are “no” for the first, and “yes and not” for the second and third.
A meteoroid can be described as a piece of small space debris that has fallen to the ground.
A meteoroid is a small, fascinating creature that makes it more exciting to look at shooting stars. A meteoroid need only weigh about a millionths of a gram to be visible. The amazing speed they travel through the atmosphere is what makes them so remarkable to view. A meteoroid traveling at speeds between 11-74 kilometers per hour before burning up will be 100 times faster then a speeding bullet.
The sighting of a shooting stars is often viewed as an unusual event. It’s easy to associate it, for example, with superstition. You can see them all year, and it isn’t rare. According to scientists, more than 200,000 tons a year of space matter enters Earth’s atmosphere. It then burns off. Comets are big sources of meteoroids due to their long tails. As a comet moves towards the sun, its tail can trap a lot of space debris, including dust and ice. To disperse this matter, the comet’s orbit moves away towards the sun.
As the Earth orbits the sun in its normal orbit, it passes through clouds made up of this discarded stuff. These “meteor Showers” are so well-known for their spectacular views. Astronomers can predict these shooting stars showers so that you can be in the right place at the right time to catch the excitement and see the sky at night. The astronomy site or magazine will usually give you an indication of the time and whereabouts when meteoroids are expected to begin to fall. It is possible that the meteoroids will not fall exactly as predicted.