Shooting Stars essays

Shooting Stars essays Disney writers and most other people do not realize that when they see a shooting star and wish on it, they actually silently speak to a chunk of ice, dirt or space waste entering the Earths atmosphere. Meteors, the scientific term for shooting stars, occur more frequently several times during the year. On any clear night, a person might observe an average of about three meteors per hour. At certain times of the year, however, the Earth passes through the debris left behind from a comet. These trails consist of many fragments broken off of asteroids, space crafts, and even planets. Three important subjects of meteors include their composition, journey, and history. Contrary to what some people grow up thinking, a shooting star is not a star at all. Composed of many different materials, meteors flake off of asteroids and are sometimes pieces of planets that meteorites deeply impacted, sending little pieces out into space. The three main types of meteors are composed of Iron, Earth's crust and Stony. Iron meteors consist mostly of iron, hence the name, and also include small amounts of nickel and cobalt. Comprised of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, sodium, potassium and magnesium, Earths crust meteors resemble most chunks of rock and gravel that occur naturally here on earth. Stony meteors, made of oxygen, iron, silicon, magnesium, aluminum, nickel and calcium, share many of the same characteristics of the materials on earth that would be referred to as stones. The way in which astronomers named these types is not ambiguous. Meteor types receive their names for their compositions. A baseball flying through the air at 30,000 mph somewhat simulates a meteor entering the atmosphere. Why do these pieces of junk look so brilliant in the night sky? ...