Meteors
Meteors flash across the night sky as shooting stars. Most nights around eight meteors can be seen each hour in a clear sky. At certain times of the year, however, hundreds and even thousands of meteors can be seen coming from a single point in the sky. These are called meteor showers.
Shooting stars
Meteors are dust particles that burn up as they pass through Earth's gassy atmosphere. The atmosphere causes friction, which makes the dust, traveling at 11 kilometres a second, slow rapidly. This heats the dust particle, turning it to gas and heating the surrounding air. These hot gasses glow , producing the tail of the meteor and the appearance of a shooting star.
Meteors and meteorites
Meteors are often confused with meteorites. Meteorites are extraterrestrial rocky objects, often parts of asteroids, which are recovered from the Earth's surface. They also cause a lot of heat and glow as they pass through the atmosphere, but unlike meteors they survive the fall. Meteors are completely destroyed by our atmosphere.
1997 Leonid meteors taken from space © NASA
Meteor showers and meteor storms
At certain times of the year several hundred meteors can light up the sky in a spectacular display. These are meteor showers, and are thought to be caused by the dust ejected from comets as they pass close to the sun. This dust is concentrated in an orbit that follows the comet's path around the sun. The Earth's orbit crosses these trails at regular times, causing a lot of dust to enter the atmosphere at the same time each year. This results in recurring meteor showers. If the shower is particularly impressive it is known as a meteor storm.
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