Astronomy: A Bright Look at Shooting Stars
One of the most unique of all astronomy events is that of the meteor shower. These are amazing events but the notable thing about meteor showers is the shooting stars that come from them. These are harmless astronomy events that are especially impressive to watch.
Shooting stars are essentially meteoroids. They are small parts of space rubble. The rubble is generally composed of dust or rocks from a comet that has broken up from an asteroid that will eventually land somewhere or break up to the point where they will become nonexistent. The pieces here will be considered to be ones that fall towards the earth because there are lights that can caused because of the friction of the atmosphere as these pieces from space burn up. What is the most unique about this is that the meteoroid will break up and explode when in entry, and the pieces from the explosion are bolides.
Comets are the most common sources of these materials. That is because of the long tails of these comets. Dust, ice and other space materials will get into the tail of the comet which can be especially long. When the comet moves from the sun when in orbit the matter on the tail will be thrown off course into space where it can disintegrate. In many cases the earth will pass through clouds of this material during its natural orbit. A meteor shower will result here.
A shooting star does not have to be too large to be one. The meteoroid can be as small as a millionth of a gram. In fact, the speed of the meteoroid can be incredibly high. The average speed of one will be about ten to seventy kilometers per second, and that is even faster than a bullet that has been shot.
Many people believe that these types of stars are unique astronomy events that may not be happened very often. This is not the case though, as there are about two hundred thousand tons of space matter that will get into the atmosphere every year to burn up as it reaches the atmosphere.
Predicting when these stars will come around is easy for astronomers. There are certain times in the day where people will need to look into certain areas. Various astronomy magazines or websites will have details on where to look and when. Of course, this is a phenomenal astronomy event, so it should be noted that there are radiants where meteoroids will occur in. A notation system involving looking into certain constellations for these showers. For instance, when a shower occurs near the Leo constellation the Leonid radiant should be observed.
Shooting stars are impressive and beautiful astronomy events. They are amazing scenes of nature where the meteoroids of comets will burn up into earth. They are indeed unique and great to watch.