How fast do falling stars travel?

Question

Comets appear to move very slowly, in relative terms to there distance from Earth. Falling stars appear to move lightning quick and yet are much farther away from us. Is there that much difference in speed? And if so, about how fast to each travel?

Answer 1

Actually, you have it backwards.

Comets travel incredible speeds, but due to their distance from Earth, appear to move quite slowly.

Falling stars, or meteorites, are objects falling into the Earth's atmosphere. They light up due to infrared radiation (heat) given off by intense frictional forces encountered in our atmosphere.

Their rate of fall is variable based on a few options. One, the type of meteorite and its density. A denser meteorite won't lose its mass as quickly as one with a larger surface area, so its chances of hitting are greater.

Also, the denser and more massive the meteorite, the less effect air drag has on it, due to inertial velocity.

Lastly, its angle of incidence is a big factor, since if it falls perpendicular to the Earth's surface, it encounters much less atmosphere than if it were to traverse at a high angle slogging through each layer of the atmosphere for a protracted amount of time.

So basically, a meteorite's speed is affected by the above factors, plus its initial relative velocity to the Earth in the first place. Comet speeds are generally very stable, and vary from comet to comet, as their velocity is affected by mostly the sun, their initial angular velocities, and any other large gravity wells within a star system.

Answer 2

Comets are ice asteroids in orbit around the Sun. Meteors are little rocks and debris falling into the earth's atmosphere. In absolute terms, the comets move much faster, but they are much farther away. Meteors are local, visible only for a few hundred miles at most. So meteors look very fast, while comets just seem to float.

It's like the Sun and the Moon. They look to be the same size in the sky but that's because of their relative distances.

Answer 3

Falling stars are actually much closer than Comets. That is because a falling star isn't a star at all. It is a meteor, a speck of dust entering the Earth's atmosphere. They travel at about the same speed as comets, several tens of thousands of miles per hour, but because they are so close, they seem to zip across the sky in a second or so.

Answer 4

Depends of the mass of the object but normally somewhere around 60,000-75,000 mph when it enters our atmosphere. Comets in space travel around 130,000+ mph. The big factors here are the size of the object and how far it is from our viewing point. Obviously the farther away it is, the slower it will look. :) Hope this helps.

Answer 5

Actually, falling stars aren't really stars. They're pieces of space junk (meteors, satellites, and anything else) that are falling from orbit back to Earth. Therefore, comets are much further away from us.

"Falling stars" are traveling 20,000+ mph in space, but when they hit the Earth's atmosphere, they immediately encounter the intense heat of air resistance. This heat incinerates them, lighting up the sky in the form of a streak.

Sometimes there's enough matter to survive this incineration, and then it falls to the Earth's surface and we hear about it in the news...

Answer 6

I don't see why the mass should be related to the speed, it just depends on how fast the object is moving through space when it hit's the atmosphere. I think it can be tens to hundreds of thousands of miles per hour, depending on where the object came from.

Answer 7

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