Star Trails
Have you ever spotted a shooting star in the night sky? Appearing as a streak of light, a shooting star is actually a small piece of rock or dust that enters the Earth’s atmosphere from space. It moves really fast, heats up as it moves through the atmosphere, and burns up before it reaches the Earth’s surface.
Scientists term shooting stars as ‘meteors’. Recently, a meteor shower called the ‘Perseids’ was in the news. The Perseid meteor shower visits us around July-August every year. Pieces of debris from a comet called the Swift-Tuttle hurtle through the Earth’s atmosphere, lighting up the night sky. On August 11th and 12th this year, the outburst was at double the normal rate, resulting in a stunning visual spectacle in the sky.
This and many, many other interesting phenomena take place in the Universe, which is made up of billions of galaxies. Let’s learn more about the galaxy that we call home, the Milky Way and the stars in our sky!
Watch this interactive video to learn more: