Astronomy / Small Solar System bodies
Meteors
From Meteorite Wiki · Astronomy article
A meteor, commonly called a shooting star, is the visible streak of light produced when a meteoroid enters Earth’s atmosphere at high speed. Despite the nickname, meteors are not stars.
The incoming object compresses and heats the air in front of it. This process, along with material being stripped from its surface, creates a glowing trail. Most small meteoroids break apart before reaching the ground.
Not actually a star
A shooting star is a meteor: the bright streak made when a small piece of space rock enters Earth's atmosphere.
Terminology
Meteoroid
A small rocky or metallic object traveling through space.
Meteor
The flash of light as that object rushes into our atmosphere.
Meteorite
A surviving piece that makes it all the way to the ground.
Meteor showers
Meteor showers occur when Earth travels through a stream of debris. Many of these streams were left by comets. The Perseids appear each August, while the Geminids peak in December and come from debris associated with the asteroid Phaethon.
Observing meteors
Choose a dark location with a wide view of the sky. Let your eyes adjust for about 20–30 minutes and avoid bright screens. A telescope is not needed: meteors can appear anywhere overhead. Clouds, moonlight and nearby lights can reduce how many you see.
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Fireballs and bolides
An unusually bright meteor is called a fireball. A bolide is often used to describe a fireball that explodes or breaks apart dramatically. Large incoming objects can produce a sonic boom, which may arrive after the light is seen.
Why meteors have different colors
A meteor’s color can depend on its speed, the gases in the atmosphere and the elements in the incoming object. Excited atoms emit different wavelengths of light. A photograph’s color also depends on the camera and exposure.
Meteorites: samples from space
Meteorites are usually grouped as stony, iron or stony-iron. Many are fragments of asteroids; some came from the Moon or Mars. They help scientists study the early Solar System. A dark rock alone is not proof of a meteorite.
Comets and asteroids
Comets contain ice, dust and rock, and can form glowing comas and tails when warmed by the Sun. Asteroids are mostly rocky or metallic. Both can supply debris that becomes meteoroids.
Space glossary
- Radiant
- The point in the sky from which a shower’s meteors appear to spread.
- Ablation
- Loss of material from an object’s surface during atmospheric entry.
- Fireball
- A meteor brighter than the planet Venus.
- Persistent train
- A glowing trail that remains after a meteor has passed.
- Parent body
- The comet or asteroid that supplied a shower’s debris.
- Light pollution
- Artificial light that makes faint objects in the sky harder to see.
Annual meteor shower calendar
Typical peak windows, not an exact forecast. Dates vary slightly by year; weather, location and moonlight affect visibility.
| Shower | Typical peak | Parent body |
|---|---|---|
| Quadrantids | Early January | 2003 EH1 |
| Lyrids | Late April | Comet Thatcher |
| Eta Aquariids | Early May | Halley’s Comet |
| Perseids | Mid-August | Comet Swift–Tuttle |
| Orionids | Late October | Halley’s Comet |
| Leonids | Mid-November | Comet Tempel–Tuttle |
| Geminids | Mid-December | 3200 Phaethon |
| Ursids | Late December | Comet Tuttle |
Meteor mini-quiz
Question 1 of 3
What is a shooting star really?
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Planets
The Solar System has eight planets. The four inner planets are rocky; the four outer planets are giants made mostly of gas or ice.
- Mercury
- Smallest planet; a year lasts 88 Earth days.
- Venus
- Hottest planet, about 465 °C, because of its thick carbon-dioxide air.
- Earth
- The only known world with liquid water oceans on its surface and life.
- Mars
- Home to Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano known in the Solar System.
- Jupiter
- Largest planet; its Great Red Spot is a storm wider than Earth.
- Saturn
- Its bright rings are made of countless pieces of ice and rock.
- Uranus
- Spins on its side, tilted about 98 degrees.
- Neptune
- Has the fastest winds measured on any planet, over 2,000 km/h.
Space facts
🚀 One million Earths could fit inside the Sun.
- One million Earths could fit inside the Sun.
- Footprints on the Moon can last millions of years because there is no wind.
- Space is completely silent because sound needs air to travel.
- A day on Mars is only about 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth.
- Light from the Sun takes about 8 minutes to reach Earth.
- Neptune takes about 165 Earth years to orbit the Sun once.
- Astronauts can grow a few centimetres taller in space.
- Jupiter has more than 90 known moons.
- The hottest planet is Venus, not Mercury, even though Mercury is closer to the Sun.
- Some meteorites found on Earth came from Mars.
- Saturn would float in a giant bathtub because it is less dense than water.
- There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all of Earth's beaches.
- A year on Venus is shorter than one Venus day.
- The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies will collide in about 4.5 billion years.
- Olympus Mons on Mars is about three times taller than Mount Everest.
- The Moon is slowly moving away from Earth by about 3.8 cm each year.
- Uranus spins on its side.
- The coldest known place in the universe is the Boomerang Nebula, about −272 °C.