I saw a shooting star tonight, which always cheers me up. I have seen more shooting stars than most people, because whenever it’s a clear night sky I’m always looking up, usually trying to pick out my favourite constellations. Seeing shooting stars is a byproduct of that, (along with a cricked neck)!

What are Shooting Stars? Well, the first thing that they ARE NOT is Stars! Stars are huge nuclear fusion furnaces like our Sun. Shooting Stars are normally just bits of dust entering our atmosphere.

Shooting stars are usually no larger than a grain of sand. However, they are travelling at thousands of miles per hour, and quickly burn up in our atmosphere. That’s when we can see the ’shooting star’ effect.

Shooting stars are technically ‘meteors’ though only larger particles are normally refered to as a meteor. An object the size of an apple travelling at up to 50 miles per second would take longer to burn up in the atmosphere and you may be lucky enough to actually see flames. (I have seen this twice in 40 years of star gazing).

Some meteors can be quite large, and they may not burn out completely, reaching the ground with an explosion. These objects are known as Meteorites. They are quite rare, and usually fall into the sea. However really huge meteorites have hit the Earth.

In 1908 a meteorite fell in Siberia and the impact blew trees down for 60 miles around. The explosion was heard up to 500 miles away, and even 100 miles from the impact, people were knocked over by the shock wave!  This incident whilst rare, was entirely natural, but features in a number of conspiracy/alternative science theories.

Keep looking up, on dark clear nights, and you will see Shooting Stars. Happy star gazing.

John McNally