Was it a Shooting Star or Meteor?

Question

Last night I was walking out from my friend's cottage on the beach and I was looking up when what appeared to be a shooting star flashed across the sky. The weird thing is it did not travel across the sky, but more like from up to down. It didnt travel very far either, it was a quick flash but it was amazing none the less, I've never seen a shooting star before. I know there was supposed to be a meteor shower this week so I'm wondering if it was part of that or a shooting star. Can anyone help me?

Answer 1

Shooting stars are meteors.

Answer 2

The shooting stars or meteors are small fragments of cosmic debris entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speed. They vaporize due to friction with the air, leaving a streak of light that very quickly disappears. Most of the small fragments of cosmic debris are smaller than a grain of sand, so almost all fragments disintegrate and never hit the earth's surface. Fragments which do contact earth's surface are called meteorites.

What you saw was probably shooting stars pertaining to
the Perseids, a meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle (so named because it was discovered independently by Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle in 1862. The period of the comet is 130 years). The Perseids are so called because the point they appear to come from, called the radiant, lies in the constellation Perseus. However, they can be seen all across the sky. Because of the path of Swift-Tuttle's orbit, Perseids are mostly visible on the northern hemisphere.

The shower is visible from mid-July each year, with the greatest activity between August 8 and 14, peaking about August 12. During the peak, the rate of meteors reaches a hundred or more per hour.

About your comment: "The weird thing is it did not travel across the sky, but more like from up to down". This is an perspective effect. On the other hand, the duration of the process depends on the size and the speed of the meteoric particle. Usually they burn before hitting the earth surface.

Answer 3

That's what you saw. The Perseid meteor shower lasts all weekend, take in the sights again tonight, it should be even better.
Meteors (or shooting stars) happen every night. I've seen hundreds of them, and a few really, really spectacular ones.
They don't just shoot across the sky, they can hit from any angle (although there are optimal places to look for particular meteor showers at particular times).
It probably did indeed come "down". Once, I was skywatching on the ground on my back and saw a meteor come directly at me through the atmosphere, it was spiraling down, so appeared to make a circle above me. It was small, though, and burned up in about a second. But it was a rare, and cool sight.
Happy skywatching! Get out there tonight!

Answer 4

There is really no such thing as a shooting star, some people just call them that, what you saw was a Meteor.

I Will give you a list of what they are called.
When they are in space they are called meteoroids, when the enter the Earth atmosphere and heat up to a glow with a tail, then the are called Meteorites,
When one of them make ti all the way to the ground, then they are called meteorites.

As for a meteor moving slightly up then down, this can be caused by peaces breaking off and changing the aerodynamics, that is why some move up and down, come can even veer left and right, but none of them can make sharp right or left angle turns.

I hope this gives you a better incite on what they call these items.

Answer 5

"Shooting star" is an obsolete term from when people were too ignorant to know the facts. Same with Venus being "the evening star". Neither "shooting stars" nor "the evening star" fit the modern definition of a star. Back then, all that star meant was a pinprick of light in the sky. Now a days, a star is a body which is 1. gravitationally bound 2. supported by thermal pressure 3. in hydrostatic equilibrium 4. plasma phase of matter 5. emitting black body radiation 6. undergoing nuclear fusion Meteor is now what we call a stray rock striking the Earth's atmosphere...it burns up upon atmospheric entry and we see something that "looks like a star" which is shooting across the sky. No true star will ever shoot across the sky. They are all too far away for their apparent motion to be that great.

Answer 6

Here is some info from Spaceweather.com

Space Weather News for August 9, 2007
http://spaceweather.com

The Perseid meteor shower has begun. Although the display will not
peak until
August 12th and 13th, sky watchers are already counting as many as a
dozen
meteors per hour (including some nice fireballs) during the darkest
hours before
dawn. Rates could increase 5- to 10-fold when the shower reaches
maximum on
Sunday night and Monday morning. Advice: Get away from city lights.
While many
Perseids will be bright enough to see from light-polluted urban
areas, the
shower's full grandeur is reserved for places with dark and starry
skies. This
is a good weekend to go camping.

Visit http://Spaceweather.com for photos, observing tips and a sky
map. Full
coverage of the shower begins today and will continue until Perseid
activity
subsides.

Answer 7

Meteor is a bright streak of light that appears briefly in the sky. Observers often call meteors shooting or falling stars. People sometimes call the brightest meteors 'fireballs'. A meteor appears in the sky whenever an object called a meteroid hurtles into the earth's atmosphere from space. Air friction heats the meteroid so that it glows and creates a shining trail of gases and melted meteoroid particles.
Most of them disintegrate before reaching the earth, those who reaches are called meteorites.

Answer 8

Yes, that sounds like a meteor. There is a shower going on now, with the expected maximum activity to be late Sunday night. But there should be a few already flashing in the sky.

Answer 9

"Shooting star" is the popular word for "meteor"; they both mean exactly the same.

It would almost certainly be a Perseid. Although they originate in the constellation Perseus in the northeastern sky, they can be seen in any part of the sky and going in any direction so long as it can be traced back to the radiant in Perseus.

Answer 10

Just saw a green shooting star in Bristol Tennessee at 1125 pm. This is a meteorite that contains high amounts of copper. Copper burns green when heated at extreme temperatures or in this case, when the meteorite enters the earth's atmosphere.