What Are "Meteors"� Or "Falling Stars?"�

The falling stars are not stars at all. Now it is called "meteor". When meteors come within our atmosphere, we can see them because they leave a fiery train of light. This is caused by the heat made by the friction, or rubbing, of air upon their surfaces.

Strangely enough, most individual meteor particles are quite small, about the size of a pinhead. Occasional meteors weigh many tons. Most meteors are destroyed entirely by heat as they pass through the earth's atmosphere. Scientists believe that thousands of meteors fall to earth each day and night, but since most of the earth's surface is covered by water, they usually fall into oceans and lakes.

Meteors may appear in the sky singly and travel in practically any direction. But meteors usually occur in swarms of thousands. As the earth travels in its path around the sun, it may come close to such swarms of meteors, they become fiery hot upon contact with the upper layers of the atmosphere, and we see a "meteoric shower". Astronomers now believe that the periodic swarms of meteors are the broken fragments of comets.