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StarChild Question of the Month for August 1999 Question: What causes a "falling star"? Answer: A "falling star" or a "shooting star" has nothing at all to do with a star! These amazing streaks of light you can sometimes see in the night sky are caused by tiny bits of dust and rock called meteoroids falling into the Earth's atmosphere and burning up. The short-lived trail of light the burning ...
The chance of seeing a meteor with the unaided eye increases after midnight. People often refer to meteors as "falling" or "shooting" stars. The brightest of the meteors are called fireballs. Sonic booms often follow the appearance of a fireball just as thunder often follows lightning. At certain times of the year, more meteors than normal can ...
Fireballs were much in the news over the past month due to a big one that was seen in the Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana areas around local midnight on March 26 - 27, 2003. The fireball streaked across the sky and exploded in a bright flash. But just what causes the fireball, and how often do they occur?
A "falling star" or a "shooting star" has nothing at all to do with a star! These amazing streaks of light you can sometimes see in the night sky are caused by tiny bits of dust and rock called meteoroids falling into the Earth's atmosphere and burning up. The short-lived trail of light the burning meteoroid produces is called a meteor. Meteors are commonly called falling stars or shooting ...
Star Art - An Introduction to Myths of Different Cultures Star watching has occupied humans from the earliest times. Our ancestors studied the night sky and saw shapes and patterns among the stars. They often made up stories to explain what they saw. The same star constellation was seen very differently by people from different countries, or even different parts of the same country. When ...
Scientists believe that comets are made up of material left over from when the Sun and the planets were formed. They think that about 100,000 million comets orbit the Sun. Some comets orbit the Sun like planets. Their orbits take them very close to and very far away from the Sun.
To our eyes, this makes the star seem to twinkle. You will notice that stars closer to the horizon will appear to twinkle more than other stars. This is because there is a lot more atmosphere between you and a star near the horizon than between you and a star higher in the sky. Go out some night soon and have a look!
A search for signs of life in other parts of the universe is done by looking at the radio emissions of individual star systems. Each star in the system is examined for possible planets that may be orbiting the star. An advantage of the newly proposed Allen Telescope is that it can look at more than one star at a time.
The nearest star (after our Sun, of course!) is Proxima Centauri at a distance of 4.2 light years. At a speed of 17 km/sec (such as what the Voyager 1 spacecraft currently has), it would take about 75,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri.
StarChild is a learning center for young astronomers ages 5-13 to learn about the solar system, the Milky Way galaxy, and the universe beyond. Use the links above to explore the site's topics. If you are looking for something a bit more advanced (ages 14+), then head on over to Imagine the Universe!