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Last night, I was outside looking up at the stars, when I saw a falling star.
But it wasn't falling to the side or down...it was shooting UP.

Do stars fall up?

2007-11-12 10:51:03 · 10 answers · asked by lkjgfyfukh 4 in Science & Mathematics Astronomy & Space

10 answers

Well, Sarah, if it was moving in the sky it wasn't really a star. Stars are huge spherical nuclear reactors, most of them millions of times larger than our whole world. They are so far away that they look like points in our sky. There is one star that is close enough for us to see in all its spherical splendor, and that is the star that lights up our days that we call the Sun.

If it was moving steadily up from the horizon towards the sky directly over your head, it might have been a man-made satellite, like the International Space Station, or one of the other thousands of objects circling our Earth a few hundred miles up.

If it was moving fast in an upward direction from the horizon, then it was probably a meteor, of "shooting star" or "falling star"; a piece of rock or dust that hit the top of our atmosphere at extremly high speed, (around 30 miles per second) and burned up. Now if it hit the atmosphere over ground that was hundreds of miles from your viewpoint and its path was taking it straight over your head, then indeed, it would have appeared to be falling up . . . as an effect of perspective.

Finally, there is a situation where a meteor would actually be going up: Imagine a meteor that has struck the atmosphere at a very shallow angle, close to a tangent with respect to the ground, such that it only glanced the atmosphere enough to burn a bit only to continue on its merry way past our planet. At first, it would indeed be "falling" as it approached Earth, but then once it crossed the lowest point in its tangential path, it would be truly "falling up" wouldn't it? But we're not talking about stars here: Just meteors.

So the answer is: No, stars certainly don't fall up, but shooting stars, under the very particular circumstance described above, sometimes do.

2007-11-12 11:44:27 · answer #1 · answered by @lec 4 · 1 0

I wish that the term “shooting star” was taken out of the vocabulary. It comes from a time when people did not know that stars are trillions of miles away and are suns, while shooting stars are just meteoroids, mostly just grain size, burning up in the atmosphere, maybe only 30 miles up.

All meteors that you see are falling into Earth, just the same as anything down here falls to Earth. You see them in a dark sky and since at 30 miles you have no depth vision, you have no way of discerning whether a streak is going up or down. In fact they are all coming down (obviously), but if a meteor enters the atmosphere in the lower part of the sky, and before it burns out it travels somewhat towards you, it looks as though it is travelling upwards.

Watch an aircraft approach your location from low in the horizon. Especially at night, when you just see the navigation lights, the perspective of its approach makes it look like it is travelling up into the sky, while in fact it may be coming down gradually for approach. It’s the same thing.

Get scientific. There is no such thing as a “shooting star”.

2007-11-12 11:14:32 · answer #2 · answered by nick s 6 · 1 0

As others have said, what you saw was a meteor, not a star. If the radiant (point from which the meteors appear to come) is low in the sky, you can indeed have meteors appear to move upward in the sky, if you are directly underneath their track through the atmosphere. Here is an image made with the camera pointing towards the radiant of the Leonid meteor shower. The meteor tracks towards the top of the picture are in fact going upwards:
http://pages.sbcglobal.net/raycash/leonid.jpg

2007-11-12 11:14:50 · answer #3 · answered by GeoffG 7 · 1 0

Shooting stars are objects that pass through the Earth's atmosphere at high velocities such that the friction heats them up enough for them to emit light. As such, there is no specific direction for a shooting star to go; from your location and angle, it may look horizontal to the horizon while another person from some other location sees the same object going down towards the horizon.

2007-11-12 10:58:00 · answer #4 · answered by Ron 6 · 1 0

Yes, sometimes shooting star appear to fall upward.

It is actually a meteor which is glowing brightly as it burns up in our atmosphere. It happens to be traveling more or less in your directions but will fly far over you head. From your point of view, it appears to be falling up.

Jerry

2007-11-12 12:13:16 · answer #5 · answered by jerrywickey 2 · 0 0

for one, that wasnt a star is was a small meteorite. stars rotate around the center of the galaxy. in space nothing falls anywhere except to the nearest and strongest center of gravity. so basically, stars dont fall at all. not up, down, left, right, forwards, or backwards. the term shooting star or falling star is a misnomer, they are just small meteorites that are falling to earth.

2007-11-12 10:58:51 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1 0

I too have seen this phenonenon. The answers given do not really answer it either. To me, they should always be between horizontal and vertically down, but never upwards. (OK, and as a pinpoint if it is coming straight towards you).

Hmmmmm

Also, be aware that in space, there is no up, down, etc. What is up to one person can always be down to someone else.

2007-11-12 11:02:17 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

That wasn't a shooting star; Pres. Bush must have shot off another nuclear missile.
lol jk
umm no. they enter Earth's atmosphere. they don't leave it.

2007-11-12 11:25:35 · answer #8 · answered by The Fine Flu 3 · 0 0

It;s an optical illusion. When the meteor is crossing from one horizon toward the other, it looks like its going up.

2007-11-12 10:54:50 · answer #9 · answered by Brad W 1 · 0 0

It was a flying saucer. They have been checking us out again.

2007-11-12 12:44:28 · answer #10 · answered by fixn2rock 2 · 1 0

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