What are shooting stars?

Question asked by: NazarBaba

Asked on: 13 May 2010

Shooting stars are caused by little particles of dust usually burning up in the earth's atmosphere.

The earth is bombarded with dust and other miscellaneous things floating through space on a regular basis.

Normally these get very hot as they enter the atmosphere, as they are moving very quickly and encounter resistance when they hit the particles in earths atmosphere.

This causes them to heat up and usually burn up and disintegrate, this is seen as the bright light that is given out by the heat energy and that is what causes the shooting star to appear.

Of course we can only see them at night. There are several meteor showers that the earth passes through each year or on some other regular basis, and so if you look out on a clear night during one of these you will see shooting stars; at other times of year you might also get lucky and see them.
By: knowitall
Replied at: 23 May 2010
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