Millions of small rock clumps are present in the space which can vary in size. It can have the size of a grain or the size of a golf ball and is made up of dust. During the earth’s revolution around the sun these small grain of dust particles strike with the atmosphere at very great speed say 65 kilometers per second. When they find their path through the earth’s atmosphere their temperature starts on increasing. So they start shinning or glowing by getting heated up. And finally burns down which appears to us as glowing star and in a second it vanishes. These are called as the shooting stars or the falling stars. They last for less than one second. After every 10 to 15 minutes you can expect a shooting star. Millions of these particles collide but we can only see a part of the sky so when it strikes at a particular area which is visible to our eyes we can see a glowing star. These collisions also happen during the daytime but we cannot recognize it because they are too dim in the sunlight. This happens all around the world we can say that after every minute a particle from the space strikes the earth’s atmosphere.
Shooting stars or the falling stars are meteors. Meteor is formed from a comet which is a huge ball of dust particles which move in the space in an orbit and advances towards the sun. When the surface of comet gets heated it releases gases and dust and they are pushed with the pressure of sunlight and form meteorites. Many meteorites combine to form meteoroid swam and collides with the earth’s atmosphere when the earth comes near it.
Generally the meteor appears white in color but they can also be red, green, blue, yellow, orange. A meteor that vanishes in the end of its flight that is visible is called a bolide. A meteor that burns more brightly than the other stars is known as fireball but they are rare. If a meteor does not burn before reaching the surface of earth then it is called as meteorite.
