November 1, 2009
Shooting Stars - Very Beautiful Or Just Plain Unfortunate?
The beauty of a shooting star crossing the night sky is undeniable, but while for some people
this is very romantic, for others it just suggests a bad omen. The understanding of the shooting star in
different parts of the world is both varied and suggestive. Thus, westerners commonly make a wish when they
see a falling star, while in other traditions, any shooting
star tells people that someone has passed away. Yet,
although we give all sorts of explanations to such sky events, they have a very reasonable and easy to
understand scientific background. Beautiful and great as a shooting star may be, it is just a
false star. Click through here for extra
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A shooting star is a meteoroid, or some form of
debris that enters
Earth's atmosphere and gets on fire. The great friction of the air masses and the presence of the oxygen associated with the high
velocity of the meteoroid cause the star-like appearance. Thus, the shooting star often doesn't even get to touch the ground as it
burns completely in the atmosphere. Big-sized meteoroids may not burn completely and they fall on the ground causing
crater formations. Such falling stars are known as meteors.
Scientists can identify the chemical
structure of a shooting star by observing the light specter during the descent as well as the
trajectory through the atmosphere. Though noticeable with the naked eye
only at night, meteoroids and meteors also fall during
the day, but this time they are detected only by radio signals, with the sunlight making them very difficult to spot
otherwise. Thus, scientists have
determined that the weight and structure of a shooting star can vary
a lot from snowball lightness to metal heaviness. A special kind of shooting star here is
the one that passes through an atmosphere sector and gets out into space again to continue its speedy
course. You
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A shooting star with a high burning intensity is called a
fireball and the measurements result from comparing the light intensity of
the meteor with that of a planet. As beautiful
as it may look, a shooting star has a huge
destructive potential if it is not totally combusted during the
flight through the atmosphere. Past collisions were
devastating for ecosystems, with great flora and fauna damage; should such a shooting star fall in a city,
the effect would be that of a bomb dropping, with
a higher or lower
destructive force depending on the size of the meteor. You can
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Filed under History of Astronomy by astronomy_fan

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