Have you ever tried wishing on a star? Well, if it still haven't come true, I guess you have to know a few facts why it ended up like that.It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a. . . .SATELLITE?!
As we continue to believe that our wish depends on a star, some astronomers actually have a better explanation for this. Some "shooting/falling stars" aren't actually a piece of heavenly body rather it's a man-made satellite roaming around our blue-green planet.
How do I Tell the Difference Between Shooting Stars?
The Truth. . .
Meteors are commonly called falling stars or shooting stars.
A falling star/shooting star has nothing to do with a star! These amazing streaks of light you can sometimes see in the night sky are caused by tiny bits of dust and rock called meteoroids falling into the Earth's atmosphere and burning up.
The part of meteoroid that survived it's way to Earth is called meteorite.
There are dates in a year where you can see number of meteors passing by at nght. These events are called meteor shower and they occur when the Earth passes through the trail of debris left by a comet as it orbits the sun. The names of the showers depends on the constellation where they originated.
"It is important to understand that the meteoroids (and therefore the meteors) do not really originate from the constellations or any of the stars in the constellations, however, they just seem to come from the part of the sky because of the way the Earth encounters the particles moving in the path of the comet's orbit. Associating the shower name with the region of the sky they seem to come from just helps astronomers know where to look." - http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov
Now I want to see a "real" star fall on our planet. One that's as big as the moon. :D Anyway, nice post!
ReplyDeleteIf we were wishing on a satellite, does that mean that wishing on a star will work?
ReplyDeleteNo wonder my wishes don't come true......
ReplyDelete