11/16/2023 0 Comments Night of the meteor game![]() ![]() Each year the Earth passes through the long, looping orbits of comets, plowing into the stream of left-over dust particles. Most of it comes from disintegrating comets some are bits of asteroid debris. The Perseid shower, like all meteors showers, actually “rains down” the very smallest of rock, on the order of grains of sand. We know that cannot be true for after all these thousands of years of seeing what must be trillions of meteors in that time, the sky would have run out of visible stars! Indeed, the sudden sight of one streaking across a clear night sky may almost seem like one of the stars, seemingly forever in place, has just come loose and is shooting downward only to fizzle out. I could have said “shooting stars,” which is a very old phrase referring to meteors. ![]() ![]() It’s time for the annual Perseid Meteor Shower, certainly the best known, best loved and one of the best showers of “falling rocks” to be regularly seen. Columns share an author’s personal perspective
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