What exactly are shooting stars?

With the Moon's illumination shrinking, you may look southeast tonight or early Friday morning and see a shooting star. This is part of the Orionids meteor shower which peaks tonight. So find a shooting star and make a wish. Ever wish you knew what they actually are?

If so, you are in luck. Despite the name, shooting (or falling) stars are actually never actually stars whizzing through space.

Instead, the streaks of light burning up at night are meteors falling into Earth’s atmosphere and burning up. Additionally, passing comets can also leave trails akin to a shooting star.

The meteors are often tiny, sometimes as small as a pebble, but the sheer speed at which they travel causes friction and heat. Eventually, the meteor gets so hot that part of it evaporates leaving a trial of gas and dust.

There is another question here, what’s the difference between comets and meteoroids? Comets are balls of ice and dust, formed during the birth of the solar system billions of years ago. Meteoroids are asteroids (rocky leftovers of planets) and are pretty small. Once a meteoroid enters a planet’s atmosphere it becomes a meteor, finally, if a meteor hits a planet’s surface it is a meteorite.

To explain more about shooting stars, here is another look at our weather-explained video on the topic.