the.com/shooting star
A grain of cosmic dust dying spectacularly enough to make you wish on it.
means A meteor — a bright streak of light seen when a small bit of space debris burns up as it enters Earth's atmosphere.
from A plain English compound joining 'shooting,' in its old sense of darting or moving swiftly, with 'star.' For most of history people had no idea these flashes were specks of rock vaporizing in the upper air — they simply looked like stars suddenly let loose to race across the sky, so the name describes exactly what the eye sees rather than what physics knows. The word 'meteor' itself comes from the Greek 'meteoros,' meaning 'high up' or 'lofty,' the same root that gives us 'meteorology.'
- actual size
- Most are smaller than a grain of sand
- raw speed
- They scream in at 160,000 mph
- misnomer
- Not stars, just dust burning on entry
- daily count
- Earth catches millions every single day
- the glow
- Light comes from air, not the rock
leonid meteor shower — annual event with up to 15 meteors per hour, peaks in november over earth
perseid meteor shower — most popular annual shower with 50-100 meteors per hour, peaks in august
chelyabinsk meteor — exploded over russia on february 15, 2013, brighter than the sun at midday