Meteor Showers

A meteor shower is the appearance of an abnormal amount of meteors, or shooting stars. Meteors are chunks of rock or metal which fall into the Earth's atmosphere. As they descend, air friction heats them up, creating temperatures which burn away the meteor's outer surface. Usually the meteor burns away completely, but sometimes the bigger ones reach the ground. These are called meteorites, and can cause anything from a hole in the ground to a crater a mile across. Larger meteors are rare, however, and there have been only two recorded injuries from meteorites, one of which was a dog. It is estimated that around 5,000 tons of meteoritic material falls to the Earth each day. Most of this material is very small, however. Scientists also think that meteors are space "junk". Meteorites have many different sources, such as interstellar dust, asteroids, comets, and even Mars. Man-made meteor showers have also occurred when obsolete satellites have been guided into the Earth's atmosphere, such as SkyLab. Although meteors happen year-round (about 3 per hour), they periodically come in large numbers. These meteor showers are usually associated with comets, leading scientists to believe that the periodic meteor showers come from the tails of long since gone comets. Not only do meteor showers happen periodically, they happen in the same position of the sky. Because of this, meteor showers are named after the constellation they appear to come from. Two notable meteor showers are the Leonids and the Persieds, which peak around August 12 every year. Strong meteor showers like these usually get the attention of the media, who announce them to the public. The casual star gazer would enjoy going out at night during these showers and watching the free show.

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