All About Shooting Stars

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Written by Gregory McFadden

Sunday, 22 November 2009 08:19

by GregoryMcFadden

If you adore anything that has to do with celestial bodies, then the one thing that probably started you with this hobby is the 1st time that you have looked through a telescope to witness your first meteor shower. At the same time when you see the 1st one of your many meteor showers, you could possibly remember what you saw on an alien film or any sci-fi movie. It fascinates you and might make you question if there is life from outside this planet. I'm with you. However , with proper direction and reason why such phenomenon happens makes us realize that meteor showers are not related to alien invasion after all. These are just natural occurrences in nature that is delightful to observe.

It is intriguing to see these strange lights in the night sky. Are they aliens from Mars? Is it an indication of the subsequent ice age? Or are they just asteroids burning up as they enter in the earth's atmosphere? To respond to these questions, let us look in details about the meteor shower first.
A meteoroid is a tiny space rock or dust that comes out of a comet or a fragment of asteroid in space that eventually unearths their way in the earth's atmosphere.

The Earth's atmosphere contains gas and these gases produces friction against the space rock so causing the rock burn as they fall solid to give us an impressive light show. A meteorite that breaks up or explodes on entry on the Earth's atmosphere is known as bolides.

There a lot of interesting details about the life of a meteoroid that makes them more entertaining to view at. A meteoroid only wants to weight as little as a million of gram to be seen by the people down on Earth. They are impressive to take a look at since they reach a speed of 11 to 74 kilometers per second which is 100 times quicker than a speeding bullet.

Before, folk think a shooting star is also associated with superstitions. Each wonder why we have the expression wish on a lucky star? However , there are thousands of shooting stars falling down on Earth so it isn't rare to see one. Moreover, scientist tells us that over 200,000 tons of space matter enters the atmosphere and burns up during its entry.

Comets are major sources of meteoroids thanks to the nature of its long tails. Large quantity of dust and ice as well as other space debris get wrapped up in a comet's tail as it makes it journey close to the sun. As it moves away from the sun, a lot of matter from the comet gets chipped and are dispersed on space. As the Earth revolves around the sun, it comes across these clouds of debris thus resulting to meteor shower.

These shooting stars are really predictable so you can easily see them by having a look at the right area of the night sky. The astronomy mags usually give off the general time and location for these events so you'll be bound to witness an impressive view of the sky.

This is a natural occurrence in nature so that the envisioned time and location set by astronomers might not be true. Also it is important to remember that there is a notation as to where the meteor shower will take place based mostly on its backdrop constellation. The portion of the sky where the meteors enter and begin to glow or radiate is known as radiant. This is where you want to concentrate on. The glowing is named after the constellation nearest it. As an example, if the meteor shower occurs close to the constellation of Leo, then the glowing is called Leonid. This may actually help you identify the meteoroid shower in the publications.
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