why do shooting stars come?

Answer 1

Because earth passes through the debris left behind by a comet's tail. The debris consists of tiny particles mostly smaller than a grain of sand.

We are currently in the middle of the Perseid meteor shower, The Perseids are the biggest annual meteor shower, and have been observed and been famous for 2,000 years now, with the first known information on these meteors coming from the far east.

The shower is visible from mid-July each year, but the bulk of its activity falls between August 8th and 14th with a peak on August 12th. During the peak, rates of a hundred or more meteors per hour can be registered.

Each time a periodic comet swings by the Sun, it produces large amounts of small particles which will eventually spread out along the entire orbit of the comet to form a meteoroid "stream".

If the Earth's orbit and the comet's orbit intersect at some point, then the Earth will pass through this stream for a few days at roughly the same time each year, producing a meteor shower. The parent bodies (comets) of most known meteor showers have now been identified.

The Perseid cloud stretches along the orbit of Comet Swift-Tuttle. The cloud is comprised of particles ejected by the comet as it passed by the Sun. Most of the dust in the cloud today is approximately a thousand years old.

However, there is also a relatively young filament of dust in the stream that boiled off the comet in 1862. The approximate rate of meteors originating from this filament is much higher than normal.

A few facts about Comet Swift-Tuttle:

Comet Swift-Tuttle was independently discovered by Lewis Swift on July 16, 1862 and by Horace Parnell Tuttle on July 19, 1862.

The comet made a return appearance in 1992, reaching perihelion (the nearest it gets to the sun) on December 11, 1992. The next estimated perihelion date is July 12, 2126,

The average orbital period of the comet is 133.28 earth years, Its Perihelion is 0.9595 AU (slightly less than the distance from the earth to the sun = 1 AU) but its Aphelion (the farthest distance from the sun that it reaches) is 51.225 AU, which is a third as far again as Pluto (38 AU).

So that is where the debris we see as the Perseids burning up as shooting stars in our upper atmosphere comes from, From way beyond Pluto in the Kuiper Belt, Where there is debris a-plenty.

Answer 2

A shooting star is nothing but a meteor that gets cought by earths gravity. But most of the time, when it enters earth's atmosphere it burns out before it is able to reach the ground.
Somethimes though, a meteorite does hit the ground (most of them go in an ocean.

Here's info I fouind in and encyclopedia:

METEOROID:
A meteoroid is a relatively small (sand- to boulder-sized) fragment of debris in the Solar System. When entering a planet's atmosphere, the meteoroid heats up and partially or completely vaporizes. The gas along the path of the meteoroid becomes ionized and glows. The trail of glowing vapor is called a meteor, or a shooting star. If any portion of the meteoroid survives to reach the ground, it is then referred to as a meteorite.

METEORITE:
A meteorite is an extraterrestrial body that survives its impact with the Earth's surface without being destroyed. While in space it is called a meteoroid. When it enters the atmosphere, air resistance causes the body to heat up and emit light, thus forming a fireball, also known as a meteor or shooting star. The term bolide refers to either an extraterrestrial body that collides with the Earth, or to an exceptionally bright, fireball-like meteor regardless of whether it ultimately impacts the surface.

More generally, a meteorite on the surface of any celestial body is an object that has come from elsewhere in space. Meteorites have been found on the Moon and Mars.

Meteorites that are recovered after being observed as they transitted the atmosphere or impacted the Earth are called falls. All other meteorites are known as finds. As of mid-2006, there are approximately 1050 witnessed falls having specimens in the world's collections. In contrast, there are over 31,000 well-documented meteorite finds.

Answer 3

aximili is right: shooting stars are actually bits of rock etc from space that have entered the earth's atmosphere. The enter at great speed, which causes friction with particles in the atmosphere, creating heat, and they burn up, which is why they look like stars. They happen all day and night, but of course you cant see them in daylight. If you see a "star" moving slowly and for a long time, thats a satellite.

Answer 4

Note : not all meteors are the result of cometary dust. Asteroids get pulverised from collisions and their dust gives rise to meteors.

Also, there have been several metorites found on Earth that have come from Mars. How is this possible? Asteroid impact on Mars throws up debris in all directions. Some heads for Earth.

Answer 5

Shooting Stars are really meteors. They burn up when they come into our atmosphere. Sometimes the meteors are big enough to survive the burn and be found by someone around.

Answer 6

There is no real reason that is categorized as why, it is the how you need to ask about.
How you ask?
It is the inertia making the huge rock move and with no matter to slow it down, it keeps coming to earth, then burning up in the atmosphere.

But you must know why?
Because God set them in motion as he saw fit.

Answer 7

They are leftovers of comet ejecta, that came this way and the earth is just plowing through the space where the debris was deposited.
The don't really 'come'. We come to meet their location.

Answer 8

some are the vials of ashes that people send into space,there's a company that will take a relatives ashes and put em in orbit

Answer 9

Two answers up gets the point across if not try, Stardate.org

Answer 10

'Shooting stars' are meteors that entered Earth's atmosphere.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor.