Hear about the band of dust and debris left by comets, which are visible as meteors (shooting stars)
Learn about comet debris, including meteors (shooting stars).
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Transcript
SPEAKER 1: What's happening is that the Earth is passing through a region of space in the solar system that has got dust and debris in orbit in that particular place. So it's passing through a band of dust and debris. That would probably have been left by a comet. So it'd probably be the tail of the comet, essentially, just left there.
SPEAKER 2: And the tail is basically debris that gets blown off the comet by the Sun.
SPEAKER 1: Yes. So you see this strange thing with comets, actually. As they approach the Sun, you see the tail behind them as you would expect. But as they swing around the Sun and go out, you see the tail in front of them, as it were, in their direction of motion, because the solar wind is blowing all this dust and ice off.
SPEAKER 2: And these things aren't huge. That huge, bright arc of light that we see, that's-- they're tiny things, aren't they?
SPEAKER 1: Oh, yeah. This is really, literally dust off a comet. So they're usually about a grain of sand to a pea, at most.
SPEAKER 2: They're brighter than any star, shooting across the sky.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah. And this would be something smaller than a pea and probably a grain of sand burning up in the Earth's atmosphere. You see how much energy is involved, actually. So when you get hit by big things, like that thing I had in my hand earlier, you can see why they make a big crater or big hole.
SPEAKER 2: They cause a huge crater. OK. And also it's one of these phenomena that you don't need any kind of telescope for. It is just sit and watch.
SPEAKER 1: It's a beautiful thing. And I think it's one of those things that if you know what it is, it's even more beautiful. And it really is the debris from a comet.
It was probably something that was formed 4.5 billion, nearly 5 billion years ago. It's been orbiting the sun. It goes out to the icy reach of the solar system and back again. And we are passing through the tail of them. And you see as shooting stars. It's very beautiful.
SPEAKER 2: And that's all in the sky?
SPEAKER 2: And the tail is basically debris that gets blown off the comet by the Sun.
SPEAKER 1: Yes. So you see this strange thing with comets, actually. As they approach the Sun, you see the tail behind them as you would expect. But as they swing around the Sun and go out, you see the tail in front of them, as it were, in their direction of motion, because the solar wind is blowing all this dust and ice off.
SPEAKER 2: And these things aren't huge. That huge, bright arc of light that we see, that's-- they're tiny things, aren't they?
SPEAKER 1: Oh, yeah. This is really, literally dust off a comet. So they're usually about a grain of sand to a pea, at most.
SPEAKER 2: They're brighter than any star, shooting across the sky.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah. And this would be something smaller than a pea and probably a grain of sand burning up in the Earth's atmosphere. You see how much energy is involved, actually. So when you get hit by big things, like that thing I had in my hand earlier, you can see why they make a big crater or big hole.
SPEAKER 2: They cause a huge crater. OK. And also it's one of these phenomena that you don't need any kind of telescope for. It is just sit and watch.
SPEAKER 1: It's a beautiful thing. And I think it's one of those things that if you know what it is, it's even more beautiful. And it really is the debris from a comet.
It was probably something that was formed 4.5 billion, nearly 5 billion years ago. It's been orbiting the sun. It goes out to the icy reach of the solar system and back again. And we are passing through the tail of them. And you see as shooting stars. It's very beautiful.
SPEAKER 2: And that's all in the sky?
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