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What causes meteor showers?
Home » Astronomy » Observing with Your Eyes » What causes meteor showers?Each time a comet orbits our Sun, it leaves a fine trail of debris behind. As we orbit the Sun, we pass through the debris stream and we see meteor showers! Almost all meteor showers come from comet debris, but there are a few belonging to asteroid debris.
As you’ve seen, a meteor shower’s fall rate can vary greatly. While we’re able to predict when Earth will pass through a stream, we aren’t yet able to predict accurately how dense the stream will be. Our solar system’s giant vacuum cleaner—Jupiter—has such powerful gravity that it will pull the debris stream apart as it passes through on its orbit.
Most meteors are no bigger than a grain of sand—burning up in a blaze of glory as they pass through our atmosphere. While they’re in space, they’re referred to as meteoroids. When they fall visibly, they’re meteors, and—if they survive to fall to Earth—they become meteorites.
Some very large meteorites have been found here on Earth, and each one of them is unique. Check at a local museum or observatory... You just might find a collector who will let you handle some of these “pieces of space!”
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