Shooting Stars – Really Beautiful Or Simply Plain Unfortunate?

The beauty of a shooting star crossing the night sky is undeniable, but while for some people

this is very romantic, for others it just suggests a bad omen. The perception of the shooting star in

different parts of the world implies diverse meanings associated

with old beliefs sometimes. Thus, westerners often make a wish when they

see a falling star, while in other traditions, any shooting

star tells people that someone has passed away. Yet,

even if popular beliefs give

different explanations to these cosmic phenomena, they have a very reasonable and easy to

understand scientific background. The fact is that we incorrectly call it a shooting star, as the thing in itself has nothing

of the attributes of a real star. Click through here for extra

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A shooting star is a meteoroid, or some other boulder-sized debris form that falls on Earth and gets on fire at the entrance in the atmosphere. The friction of

the air masses, the ram pressure and the presence of the oxygen associated with the high

velocity of the meteoroid cause the resemblance

with a star. Thus, the shooting star often doesn’t even get to touch the ground as it

burns completely in the atmosphere. Big-sized meteoroids may not burn completely and they fall on the making smaller or larger craters. This time they are called

meteors.

The light specter as well as the trajectory of the shooting star allow scientists to speculate

on the structure or chemical composition of the falling body. Though noticeable with the naked eye

only at night, meteoroids and meteors also fall during

the day, but this time they are detected only by radio signals, with the sunlight making them very difficult to spot

otherwise. Thus, scientists have

determined that the weight and structure of a shooting star can vary

a lot from snowball lightness to metal heaviness. A special kind of shooting star here is

the one that passes through an atmosphere sector and gets out into space again to continue its speedy

course. You

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A very bright shooting star is called a

fireball and the measurements are made by comparing the light intensity of

the meteor with that of a planet. As beautiful

as it may look, a shooting star has a huge

destructive potential if it is not totally burned during the

passage through the atmosphere. Past collisions proved

devastating for ecosystems, with great flora and fauna damage; should such a shooting star fall in a city,

the effect would be that of a bomb attack, with

the intensity of the explosion varying according to the size of the meteorite. You will

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here.

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