what is a falling star?

Answer 1

What is a falling star and what causes it to fall?
(Lansing State Journal, January 14, 1998)



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Falling stars are small, solid bodies that enter the Earth’s atmosphere as they travel through space. These stars are commonly called meteors. Meteors can enter the our atmosphere with a velocity that ranges from ten to seventy km/sec. These meteors can plunge into the atmosphere at velocities ranging from ten to seventy kilometers per second. Consequently, the friction that is created is great enough to cause the meteor to begin burning up which produces the light that we refer to as a falling star. A meteor shower occurs when hundreds of meteors fall simultaneously. Therefore, our atmosphere acts as a buffer zone which protects the Earth’s surface from impacts by many meteors that burn up as they travel through our atmosphere. In space there is no such barrier, so these meteors don't burn up. Since the moon does not have an atmosphere as thick as ours, many scientists have suggested that some of the craters on the moon may have resulted from the impacts of meteors.
Meteors that impact Earth are called meteorites. These meteorites are composed primarily of rocks and dust. Meteorites are categorized according to their composition. Some of these categories include iron, stony iron and chondrite. Most meteorites fall into the chondrite category. Many of the materials found in meteorites are also found in the Earth’s mantle and crust of. The mantle is the dense molten core of the Earth which we see as the lava that erupts from volcanoes. The crust is the surface of Earth that we live on.

In 1908 a meteor struck Siberia. While no crater was created by the impact of the meteorite, trees were flattened and the damage that resulted spanned a 60 kilometer area.

Answer 2

A meteoroid is a large sand to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar system. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters the Earth's (or another body's) atmosphere is a meteor, commonly called a shooting star or falling star. Many meteors are part of a meteor shower.

The root word meteor comes from the Greek meteōros, meaning high in the air.

A meteoroid is a small sand to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar system. Larger than that, the object is an asteroid; smaller than that, it is interplanetary dust. The current official definition of a meteoroid from the International Astronomical Union is "A solid object moving in interplanetary space, of a size considerably smaller than an asteroid and considerably larger than an atom or molecule." The Royal Astronomical Society has proposed a new definition where a meteroid is between 100 µm and 10 m across.
A meteor is the visible event that occurs when a meteoroid or asteroid enters the earth's atmosphere and becomes brightly visible. For bodies with a size scale larger than the atmospheric mean free path (10 cm to several meters) the visibility is due to the heat produced by the ram pressure (not friction, as is commonly assumed) of atmospheric entry. Since the majority of meteors are from small sand-grain size meteoroid bodies, most visible signatures are caused by electron relaxation following the individual collisions between vaporized meteor atoms and atmospheric constituents. The meteor's just what we see.

A fireball is a very bright meteor. The International Astronomical Union defines a fireball as "a meteor brighter than any of the planets" (magnitude -4 or greater). The International Meteor Organization (an amateur organization that studies meteors) has a more rigid definition. It defines a fireball as a meteor that would have a magnitude of -3 or brighter if seen at zenith. This definition corrects for the greater distance between an observer and a meteor near the horizon. For example, a meteor of magnitude -1 at 5 degrees above the horizon would be classified as a fireball because if the observer had been directly below the meteor it would have appeared as magnitude -6.

The word bolide comes from the Greek βολις, (bolis) which can mean a missile or to flash. The IAU has no official definition of bolide and generally considers the term synonymous with fireball. The term is more-often used among geologists than astronomers where it means a very large meterorite. For example, the USGS uses the term to mean a generic large crater forming projectile "to imply that we do not know the precise nature of the impacting body . . . whether it is a rocky or metallic asteroid, or an icy comet, for example". Astronomers tend to use the term to mean an exceptionally bright fireball, particularly one that explodes (sometimes called a detonating fireball).

A meteorite is a meteoroid or asteroid that survives its entry into the atmosphere and strikes the ground. A meteorite striking the Earth or other object may produce an impact crater. Geologists use the term bolide to mean a very large meteorite (see above).

In the 20th century, two people were reportedly struck by meteorites. Both survived with minor injuries. In the 1990s an empty car was struck and heavily damaged by a meteorite. The car sold as a collector's item for several tens of thousands of dollars. In all there are some dozen cases of meteorite falls documented to have hit people, property, or animals.

Molten terrestrial material "splashed" from a crater can cool and solidify into an object known as a tektite. These are often mistaken for meteorites.

Most meteoroids are destroyed when they enter the atmosphere. The left-over debris is called meteoric dust or just meteor dust. Meteor dust particles can persist in the atmosphere for up to several months. These particles might affect climate, both by scattering electromagnetic radiation and by catalyzing chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere.

Many meteoroids are formed by impacts between asteroids though many are also left in trails behind comets that form meteor showers and many members of those trails are eventually scattered into other orbits forming random meteors too. Other sources of meteors are known to have come from impacts on the Moon, or Mars as some meteorites from them have been identified.

Even very small meteoroids can damage spacecraft. The Hubble Space Telescope for example, has about 100 tiny craters and chipped areas.

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Answer 3

Do you mean a shooting star?
a shooting star is an asteroid (lump of rock, metal, ice floating in space) that enters the earths atmosphere. The friction with the air causes the asteroid(now called the meteor because it has entered the atmosphere) to heat up white hot.
This is what we see shooting across the sky.

Answer 4

A falling star is a meteor, a.k.a. space rock, that has hit Earth's atmoshpere, a.k.a. air, and is getting really hot and burning up from the friction with the air. Once it's in our atmosphere, it's called a meteorite (like other earth-rock names, fluorite, hematite, etc., we just add -ite to make it a rock). Some of them are big enough that they don't totally burn up, and they land on Earth. Really big ones leave craters!! I heard a lady was once hit by one, but it didn't kill her because it had to go through the top story of her house first. :)

Answer 5

If the Earth is as we communicate moved outdoors the universe then the celebrities might seem to fall from heaven and the heavens might seem to be rolled up like a scroll upon the Earth leaving the universe. Revelation 6:12-14 (NIV) 12 I watched as he opened the 6th seal. there substitute into an remarkable earthquake. The sunlight grew to become black like sackcloth made up of goat hair, the whole moon grew to become blood pink, 13 and the celebrities interior the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree while shaken via a reliable wind. 14 The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and each mountain and island substitute into removed from its place.

Answer 6

it is a meteror falling through the atmosphere. it builds up so much friction and gets so hot because of that it looks like it on fire or otherwise a falling star.

Answer 7

they aren't really a falling star. Its just a comet, meteroid, meterite that is hurtiling across the sky at probably the speed of life. It is also on fire because of going so fast. So that helps you to see it. Hope that helped you.

Answer 8

Q - What is a falling star?

A - Brittney Spears.

Answer 9

A meteor which is burning up in the atosphere and heating up, thus producing light.