★COMET ISON OUTBURST CONTINUES: The abrupt brightening of Comet ISON Dates of special interest include Nov. 17th and 18th when the comet will pass the bright star Spica, making ISON extra-easy to find

Meteors are better known as “shooting stars”: startling streaks of light that suddenly appear in the sky when a dust particle from outer space evaporates high in the Earth’s atmosphere. We call the light phenomenon in the atmosphere a “meteor”, while the dust particle is called a “meteoroid”. In this diagram of the inner solar system, all of the fireball orbits intersect at a single point--Earth. The orbits are color-coded by velocity, from slow (red) to fast (blue).



Read more about ★COMET ISON OUTBURST CONTINUES: The abrupt brightening of Comet ISON Dates of special interest include Nov. 17th and 18th when the comet will pass the bright star Spica, making ISON extra-easy to find