Falling stars?

Question

When we see a star falling, what actually happens? Ive seen two of them in past 3days. Not even a second lasting short flash line.

lol i actually live in Iceland :D

ok ive got enough answers already :) thx anyways

Answer 1

it is not stars, it is meteorites (when a meteor enters earth's atmosphere it is called meteorite), they burn because of their speed and earth's atmosphere. Fortunately, most of them are not very big, and burn completely before reaching earth's surface, otherwise, they would cause an incredible dammage, wich can be of more power than several atomic bombs (depending on it's mass and speed). However, meteorites sometimes did and do reach earth's surface, there are some craters left wordwide (there is a lot in Iceland), but as over 70% of earth's surface is covered by oceans, they almost always fall in oceans, when they do reach surface, wich is rare.

Answer 2

When a meteoroid enters the atmosphere of a planet it becomes a meteor. It is the ionization and creation of a plasma that we see as the streak of light. Occasionally, there is a trail left for a short time after the meteor burns out. If the meteor doesn't vaporize completely and strikes the surface of the earth or other planet it becomes a meteorite. Centuries ago it was believed that meteors were a phenomena caused by the atmosphere, hence the term meteorology is used for the study of climate and weather (probably the term meteorology was used first for climate and weather, and they applied part of the name to the "falling stars"). You can not only see meteor trails and meteors, you can also, occasionally, see a meteor break into two or more pieces (I've seen that twice). The meteors start to burn up about 60 miles up, and most are the size of a grain of sand.

Answer 3

Scale of things:

What you saw are small particles entering the atmosphere at about 80km altitiude.

Stars are suns. Most are over 1 million kms wide, and the very nearest star is over 40 trillion kilometres away.

Answer 4

They're not "stars" -- they're meteorites (small meteors). They are moving incredibly fast, and when they hit the resistance of the earth's atmosphere, they heat and burn up. Many are only a second or two long, while other bigger ones burn longer. Very rarely, one is big enough not to completely burn up and part of it may hit the ground (not very many, though).

Answer 5

Those are tiny meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere. SInce we have air around the Earth, those meteoroids smash against the air particles and heat up and become really bright, so that's what you see.

They aren't really stars, fortunately :)

Answer 6

Falling stars? I'm not sure what you mean by that.

If the star looked like it moved, it could be that the gravity of a nearby object distorted the light coming from that star.

Or you could've just seen a comet or something?

Or your mind is playing tricks on you!

Answer 7

That depends on whether or not you were wearing your glasses.