A meteor shower happens whenever the Earth’s orbit around the sun passes through a disk of material. This material might have been emitted by a comet, asteroid, or another item. When the Earth passes through such a debris stream, space objects fall into the atmosphere. As air drag warms and ignites the rocks, they sparkle. The majority of meteors burn up entirely in the atmosphere.
A meteorite is a rare rock that falls to the ground. As our planet reaches the debris zone, the performance begins slowly. It then peaks when Earth travels through the most densely populated area of the field, and then falls off as we leave.
A meteor shower will cause shooting stars to flash across the sky. However, they all appear to come from the same location. This is since all of the rocks in a meteor shower are traveling in the same direction toward Earth. The radiant is the location of their origin in the sky.
Every meteor streak has a different character.
The Geminids in December is the most brilliant of all. They are emerald green, pink, and violet in color. The Perseid meteor shower in August produces pink, lime green, and purple streaks. In the blink of an eye, they flash over the sky. The Orionids are even quicker and brighter in October. Their stripes have a whitish-orange shine to them.
Those colors are the result of two processes.
There is really nothing to slow or stop a meteor as it flies through the emptiness of space. The rock, however, becomes heated when it reaches air resistance near the boundary of Earth’s mesosphere. The rock finally burns due to the heat. The color of its flames will vary based on the composition of the rock. The hue of its light is determined by its elemental composition. Metallic components tend to burn the brightest.
As a meteor accelerates through the atmosphere, the pack of air trapped ahead of it compresses. That air cushion pack is being pressed so tightly that it is heating up. When molecules absorb a sufficient amount of energy, they get energized. Following that, they will emit light packets known as photons. The more energy that accumulates, the more vibrant the light that is emitted afterward. Higher energy photons emit light with a higher frequency, often known as a higher wavelength.
