How you can watch the Orionid meteor shower this weekend.
2 min read 10/21/2023, 08:45 PM IST
Every year, different groups of falling stars light up the dark sky at night. Each group has its own special traits, which make them very interesting to watch. The Orionids meteor shower happens in October and is famous and reliable. This is a great chance to go outside, see this amazing sky event with your own eyes, and find out why it’s so special.
Shooting stars aren’t actually stars, they are rocks called meteoroids that travel through space. These meteoroids can be different sizes, from very tiny pebbles and grains of sand to bigger and uncommon objects.
As our planet moves around the Sun, sometimes it crosses paths with these objects in space because of luck. This cosmic material coming to Earth is a lot, about 48 tons of it hits Earth every day.
When these space rocks come into our air, they turn into shooting stars. The Orionids move quickly through the sky at around 61 kilometers per second. When these things come close to Earth, they become very bright in the sky because of the air around us. This makes colorful lines for a short time.
But where do these meteoroids come from. Meteor showers happen when the Earth moves through areas where there is a lot of space junk left by comets as they travel around the Sun.
Comets, which are sometimes called “dirty snowballs,” are made up of loose stuff that is stuck together with frozen gases. When Earth crosses paths with pieces of a comet, it creates a meteor shower that makes the night sky look beautiful and captivating.