Meteor Showers

Meteor showers, are produced by small fragments of cosmic debris entering the earth's atmosphere at extremely high speed. When the number of meteors is large, it is called a meteor storm.

Each time a periodic comet swings by the Sun, it produces large amounts of small particles which will eventually spread out along the entire orbit of the comet to form a meteoroid "stream".

Most meteors seen in meteor showers are caused by particles smaller than a grain of sand. So it is very rare to have any meteorites hit the ground during a typical meteor shower.

Because meteor shower particles are all traveling in parallel paths, and at the same velocity, they will all appear to radiate from a single point in the sky to an observer below.