A meteor shower is a celestial show that you get for free – no tickets, no telescopes, no binoculars. You don’t have to travel to a high mountain to view it. All you have to enjoy this show is a dark night. Just get up in the middle of the night, go to the backyard and find a perfect spot to watch it.
Let’s see what a meteor shower is. A meteoroid is a piece of debris – the size of a pebble – which travels in outer space. Large meteoroids are believed to come from the asteroid belt. Some of the smaller meteoroids may have come from the Moon or Mars. If a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it’s called a meteor, or shooting star. If part of that meteor travels through the atmosphere and hits the Earth, it’s a meteorite. A lot of meteorites never end up being meteors or meteorites.
When the meteor (or a meteoroid) falls toward the Earth, the resistance (or drag) from the Earth’s atmosphere makes it extremely hot. The hot air around the rock glows as the rock zips through the atmosphere. When Earth comes across many meteoroids at once, we call it a meteor shower. According to SPACE.com, meteor showers occur when dust or particles from asteroids or comets enter Earth’s atmosphere at very high speed. When they hit the atmosphere, meteors rub against air particles and create friction. The heat vaporises most meteors, making them into shooting stars. We see meteor showers when the Earth rushes through the trail of particles left behind by a comet or asteroid.
Meteor showers may appear anywhere in the sky, but their “tails” usually point to the same spot in the sky. That’s because all the meteors travel to Earth at the same angle. When they are close to Earth, they look like they are getting away from one another. This is just an optical illusion.
Picture Credit : Google
