Falling stars, more commonly known as shooting stars, are meteors or other pieces of matter that burn up and disintegrate as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere and pass through it. Surprisingly, over 25 million meteors hit the Earth’s atmosphere every day.
It is important to understand the difference between the terms meteor and meteorite. The difference between the two is that a meteorite is a piece of matter, typically made of rock, that passes through the Earth’s atmosphere and hits its surface. Meteors are pieces of matter that burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere but never hit the ground. Essentially, meteorites are meteors that survive their fall through the Earth’s atmosphere.
What causes shooting stars? Everyone knows that there are many pieces of matter, such as rock or dust, floating through space. Some pieces of matter happen to pass near Earth and get caught by Earth’s gravitational field. However, some pieces of rock were already on a direct course to hit Earth. Once these small pieces of matter enter the Earth’s atmosphere, the meteor falls at an incredibly high speed, ranging from 25,000 mph to 160,000 mph on average. The speed of the fall against the gasses of the atmosphere creates intense friction. The friction causes the surface of the small piece of matter to burn up, which is called ablation. In fact, rapid heat generation is responsible for the light that we see from gazing across the night sky. Very small meteors burn up or vaporize before they can even hit the Earth’s surface. The larger meteors that survive the atmospheric friction hit the Earth’s surface and become meteorites. The meteors that survive are much smaller when they hit the ground because they burned during their fall.
But why do we call them shooting stars? Shooting star seems logical as a descriptor because stargazers see the streak of light produced as a meteor falls through the atmosphere. The streak of light allows us to see the meteor fall — or “shoot” — across the sky. We associate glowing in the sky with stars, so a burning meteor seems like a star moving across the sky.
Shooting stars are occurring all the time, even during the day. The best time to see one is at night since one can readily see the trail it leaves behind. It is also best to find a location away from cities and light pollution. The sky will be darkest in the countryside, away from man-produced lights. The darker the sky, the better chance one has of seeing one. Also, there’s an increased chance of seeing one during a meteor shower. A meteor shower consists of several pieces of a comet that have been left behind or broke off the comet. When the Earth passes through this field of debris, the pieces burn up in the atmosphere.
Dobrijevic, D. (2022, August 11). Meteor showers and shooting stars: Formation and history. Space.com. Retrieved March 28, 2023, from https://www.space.com/meteor-showers-shooting-stars.html
This blog actually clarified something for me that I didn’t even know I needed clarifying! I always thought meteors were the big flaming pieces of matter that crashed into Earth, however I now know that those are actually meteorites and meteors are shooting stars! I absolutely adore shooting stars. It’s such a shame that we cannot see them from anywhere considering all of the light pollution in populated areas, however being out in the open and being able to see a whole bunch of shooting stars truly makes it that much more special. I went on a vacation out West with my family to Arizona and Utah and the amount of shooting stars we saw even just in one night was incredible; it is such a happy memory now. With that said, I really loved this blog:)
Really great blog Anubhav! I’m not that much into astronomy, but I absolutely love learning about stars, I just feel as though there is so much beauty about them. You actually clarified a lot for me while reading this so thank you!