the.com/meteor
a grain of cosmic dust dying gloriously enough to make you wish on it
means A meteor is the bright streak of light produced when a small piece of space debris burns up as it plunges through Earth's atmosphere.
from From the Greek 'meteoron,' meaning 'a thing high up in the air,' built from 'meta-' (beyond) and 'aiorein' (to lift, to raise). To the ancient Greeks a 'meteor' was anything aloft and aloof in the sky — clouds, rainbows, shooting stars all counted, which is why the study of the atmosphere is still called meteorology. Only later did the word narrow to the dramatic flash we now picture, leaving its cousin science behind to mind the weather.
- actual size
- Most are smaller than a grain of sand
- true speed
- They scream in at up to 160000 mph
- name trick
- It's a meteor only while burning, not before
- daily haul
- Earth gains tons of space dust every day
- glow source
- The light is superheated air, not the rock
chicxulub impact — 66 million years ago in mexico, created the crater that killed the dinosaurs
tunguska event — 1908 explosion in siberia that flattened 80 million trees over 2,150 square kilometers
leonid meteor storm — november 1966 event where thousands of meteors per minute fell visible from north america