A "falling star" or a "shooting star" has nothing at all 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 short-lived trail of light the burning meteoroid produces is called a meteor. Meteors ...

Most meteors glow for only a few seconds prior to burning up before hitting the Earth's surface. On most dark nights, meteors can be seen. The chance of seeing a meteor with the unaided eye increases after midnight. People often refer to meteors as "falling" or "shooting" stars. The brightest of the meteors are called fireballs.

This photograph shows one of the meteorites which survived the "Chicago Fireball".

Why do stars twinkle? Answer: On a clear, dark night, our eyes can see about 6,000 or so stars in the sky. They seem to twinkle, or change their brightness, all the time. In fact, most of the stars are shining with a steady light.

May 14, 2018 · This site is intended for students in grades K through 8. StarChild is a learning center for young astronomers ages 5-13 to learn about the solar system, the Milky Way galaxy, and the universe beyond.

Star watching has occupied humans from the earliest times. Our ancestors studied the night sky and saw shapes and patterns among the stars. They often made up stories to explain what they saw. The same star constellation was seen very differently by people from different countries, or even different parts of the same country.

A theory that is attracting considerable attention states that gamma-ray bursts occur as the result of material shooting towards Earth at almost the speed of light as the result of a hypernova. A hypernova explosion can occur when the largest of the supermassive stars come to the end of their lives and collapse to form black holes. Hypernova ...

A meteoroid is a piece of stone-like or metal-like debris which travels in outer space. Most meteoroids are no bigger than a pebble.

Also visible during a total solar eclipse are colorful lights from the Sun's chromosphere and solar prominences shooting out through the Sun's atmosphere. When the total eclipse of the Sun is completed, the shadow of the Moon passes and sunlight appears once …

It is estimated that hundreds of millions of pieces of space trash are now floating through our region of the solar system.