Falling star. To make a wish or to read a prayer?

The starry sky is the subject of the cry of lovers andobject of observation scientists. The former admire the mysterious twilight permeated with beads of luminous bodies, the latter are immersed in complex calculations that are stored later in a box of scientific knowledge. The shooting star causes even greater delight and promises the fulfillment of cherished desires. However, it is worth understanding the terminology in order not to be considered a romantic ignoramus.

In fact, the shooting star is not at alla star. Just imagine what could happen to our planet if the sun fell on it! A star is a cluster of hot gas, whose dimensions are enormous. It seems small only due to the large distance from the Earth. Even the Sun is a medium-sized star, but it is also millions of times larger than our planet. Bright flashes that occur when a celestial body enters our atmosphere have a different nature.

In outer space is a hugenumber of different bodies: from dust to stars. Breakaway pieces of comets or asteroids, which often do not exceed the size of a small pebble, are meteoroids. They move freely in space due to the absence of frictional force until they collide with one or another object. In this case - with the planet Earth. And only then they begin to be called "meteors" and "meteorites." These two concepts should be distinguished.

A meteor is a light phenomenon that occursas a result of friction of the meteoric body against the atmosphere. Thus, the shooting star, which we define from a bright glowing tail, is a meteor. Its size can reach the size of a decent boulder and even more. However, in most cases, a meteor is no more than a grain of sand or pebble.

During the day, the Earth’s atmosphere is invadedthousands of meteors. Their average speed ranges from 35-70 km per second. At such a tremendous speed, a meteor encounters air resistance, its temperature is rapidly increasing. The body literally boils, turning into a hot gas that is dispersed in the air. And at this time earthlings are smiling happily and in a hurry to make a wish. Well, if a shooting star, that is, a meteor, is small in size and completely burns in the atmosphere. Heavenly stones are very large and reach the surface of the Earth. Such a body is already called a meteorite.

Of the last significant falls, you can rememberan event that occurred in 1920 in Africa. Then the Goba meteorite landed on the territory of the mainland, its weight was about 60 tons. Large space envoys visited us later. Suffice it to recall the incident in Chelyabinsk. Meteorite in the United States, which fell in Arizona more than 50 thousand years ago, left behind a huge crater, the diameter of which exceeds 1,200 meters. It is assumed that the weight of the space body was 300 thousand tons, and the explosion from its fall was similar to the explosion of 8 thousand bombs, similar to those that were dropped on Hiroshima.

Of course, a shooting star is beautiful. However, in this case, beauty can be a truly terrible and destructive force.