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Have you ever seen a shooting star whiz across the night sky?
It’s a magical sight.
But that light isn’t really coming from a star. It’s coming
from a meteoroid—a small piece of space rock. Many
meteoroids are smaller than a pea. A few are as big as
a boulder. Scientists call the streak of light a
meteor
.
Why do we see that bright glow? Because the chunk of
rock burns up as it travels through Earth’s atmosphere.
Sometimes many meteors appear in just a few minutes.
That’s called a
meteor shower
.
Every day, bits of space rock land on Earth. They are called
meteorites
. But don’t worry. Most of them are too small to do
any damage.
What’s a
Shooting Star?
