If you're an astronomy enthusiast like many of us, you probably remember this event from your childhood that got you started in this exciting hobby. Maybe it was the first time you looked through a telescope. But for many of us, it was the first time we saw from the sky a shower of fire that we eventually came to know as a meteor shower. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get an original essayThe moment you see the first one, it is easy to remember the movie “War of the Worlds” or another image fantasy of extraterrestrials entering our atmosphere en masse to conquer the planet. But with some guidance and explanation of what was happening, we eventually learned that these downpours were not at all threatening or any sort of invasion. For the most part, meteor showers are harmless, part of nature, and great fun to watch. So what are these strange lights in the sky? Are these aliens invading from Mars? Will comets trigger the next ice age? Or maybe asteroids burn up as they enter Earth's atmosphere. The answer to the above questions is no to the first and “yes and no” to the other two. A meteoroid is actually a small piece of space rubble, usually dust or small rocks from either a comet or the fragmentation of a planet. asteroid in space and which ends up plunging towards the earth. There are some interesting details about the life of a meteoroid that make observing shooting stars even more fun. To be seen, a meteoroid must weigh only a millionth of a gram. But what makes them so spectacular to see is the enormous speeds they reach when they enter the atmosphere. Before burning up, a meteoroid will reach between 11 and 74 kilometers per second, which is 100 times faster than a high-speed bullet. We tend to view seeing a shooting star as an abnormal event and associate it with superstition (hence wishing for a lucky star). But there are thousands of them every year, so it's not that rare to see one. In fact, scientists tell us that more than 200,000 tons of space material enter the atmosphere each year and burn up upon entry. Comets are an important source of meteoroids due to the nature of their long tails. A large amount of dust, ice, and other space debris becomes trapped in the tail of a comet as it heads toward the sun. Then, as the comet moves away from the sun in its orbit, tons of this material are released into space to disperse. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay As Earth moves in its routine orbit around the sun, it often passes through clouds of this discarded material that becomes one of those "meteor showers" so popular to observe. These shooting star showers are pretty easy for astronomers to predict, so you can put yourself in position to see the excitement at the right time of night and look at the right area of ​​the night sky. Usually the astronomy magazine or site will give you a general time and location to be ready to observe when the meteoroids start falling. Keep in mind that this is a natural phenomenon, so it may not exactly follow the schedule..