TAKE A LOOK: METEORS
Look up at the sky on a cloudless night and you will
eventually see a meteor, or “shooting star.” Meteors
are particles of dust and rock that burn up as they
enter the Earth’s atmosphere.Meteor showers occur at the same time each year,
when the Earth passes through trails of dust left by
passing comets. Very rarely, a shower may produce
thousands of shooting stars that light up the sky.
FLYING ROCKS COMETS orbit the
Sun in the outer solar
system and sometimes
appear in our skies. They
have two tails—of gas
and dust—and a solid
nucleus made of ice. The
Hale-Bopp comet passed
near our Earth in 1997.
It was one of the
brightest comets of the
20th century.
OIt’s strange to think that the Willamette meteorite (above), now
found in a museum, was once a brilliant fireball shooting toward
the Earth. It’s made of iron and nickel.SPACEMETEORITES
Meteorites are small chunks of
rock that have come from
space and landed on the Earth’s
surface. Most of them are
pieces that have broken off
asteroids. A few have come
from the Moon and Mars.
METEOR CRATER
One of the youngest and best-
preserved craters on Earth is in
Arizona. It is 50,000 years old
and 600 ft (180 m) deep.
The crater is 4,000 ft (1,200 m) wide