What is a Shooting Star?

  

 

 

 

Hey! A shooting star! A shooting star never fails to astonish people And why not! You don't see it every day! You must have seen this bright streak of light in a star studded sky which looks like a star falling from the sky But it is not a star But what is it then?! Stars are giant balls of gas whereas shooting stars are small pieces of rocks, ice or metal in space which are called Meteors M E T E O R S What is that?! In space, not only do planets revolve around the sun but also rocks of varying sizes which are called Asteroids These asteroids are smaller than planets and scientists believe that when our Solar System was created when the Sun and other planets took shape then some rocks were left which to this date, are revolving around the Sun and these rocks are called Asteroids When a piece breaks off from these asteroids upon collision or for any other reason and if this piece is closer to the Earth then Earth's gravitational pull attract it towards itself These rocks come towards the Earth at great speeds with speeds crossing 70 km/sec. 

 

As soon as this rock enters our Earth's atmosphere the gases in our atmosphere compress due to its great speed and get so hot that it starts burning up and becomes a ball of fire And this is what we call a Meteor or Ulka in hindi and call it a shooting star colloquially Scientists love giving everything unique names So, the rock that broke off from an asteroid is called Meteoroid (correction) When this meteoroid enters our atmosphere and starts burning that is called a Meteor And when a parts of a Meteor fall to the Earth those pieces are called Meteorites These Meteorites are of great use Scientists carry out research on these to better understand our solar system and universe An interesting fact is that according to NASA about 44000 kilos of meteorite fall on Earth, everyday Most meteorite are like small stones or pebbles therefore we don't even notice them But some meteorite could be quite big! Very big! Like some 50,000 years ago a metal meteorite.

 That fell in Arizona state in USA which was 50 meters wide created about a kilometer wide crater Scientists also believe that about 60 million years ago a very large asteroid crashed into our Earth which caused the extinction of dinosaurs and many other species Sometimes you can even see several meteors falling from the sky which is called Meteor Shower In which you can see dozens and hundreds of meteors falling But these meteors are a bit different These meteors are not a part of Asteroids but Comets Comets are like Asteroids but different in some ways Asteroids are composed of metals or rocks and some ice as well But comets have an about equal composition of rocks and ice.

The ice present in comets evaporates into gas due to Sun's heat and therefore Comets have a tail of dust and gases Sometimes these comets cross Earth's path around  the Sun and leave a trail of dust particles behind These particles can stay there for a long time and when Earth passes through these band of particles all these particles fall towards the Earth and every particle becomes a meteor This is called meteor shower and every year there are months when meteor shower can be seen like January April, May, July, August, October, November and December that means we have plenty of opportunities to see these meteor showers And this August, I am going to watch meteor shower for sure