Meteors Facts
Meteors Facts
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| Interesting Meteors Facts: |
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| A meteor shower occurs when a lot of meteors appear in a short time frame. |
| There are millions of meteors in the Earth's atmosphere every day. |
| The word meteor comes from a Greek word that means suspended in the air. |
| Meteors can become visible as high as 120 kilometers above Earth. |
| Meteors can give off various colors when they burn which is associated with their composition. |
| Meteors that burn brighter than usual are called fireballs. |
| Most fireballs go unseen because they occur over the ocean or during daylight hours. |
| Meteors usually burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. |
| If a meteor produces a sound called a sonic boom, it is typically heard seconds after the meteor becomes visible. |
| Although meteors have existed since ancient times, they were not believed to be from our Solar System until 1833. |
| A meteor shower is usually the result of debris from a broken comet. |
| Usually meteors are the size of pebbles and no larger than a baseball. |
| Dinosaurs are believed to have died because an 8 mile long meteor hit the Earth causing a cloud of dust that lowered the climate. |
| Two big meteor showers occur each year: the Perseids in August and the Geminids in December. |
| Most meteors fall in the ocean because the Earth's surface is covered by more water than land. |
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