Week 11: Meteors

What is a Meteor?

• Meteoroids often strike Earth’s atmosphere and burn up due to friction

  • the light you see when it burns up is called a meteor

    • falling or shooting star

      • the light is in the meteor

      • the object causing the meteor is the meteoroid

        • meteoroids are tiny, often specs of sand but they burn up so much that they cause long streaks of light

Comet Debris

• sometimes, a comet passes through Earth’s orbit and leaves behind debris (little meteoroids from the nucleus)

  • when earth passes through that debris, you get a meteor shower