Meteor Shower

space · night sky · cosmic debris

Tiny space rocks. Most meteors are actually smaller than a grain of sand. When they zoom into Earth's atmosphere at super high speeds, they burn up and create the bright streaks of light we see as shooting stars.

Earth's cosmic visitors. Meteor showers happen when our planet travels through streams of cosmic debris left behind in space. Thousands of these meteoroids enter our atmosphere at the same time, all coming from the same direction in the sky.

Almost never dangerous. Even though thousands of meteors fall during a shower, almost all of them disintegrate high up in the atmosphere before reaching Earth's surface. You're completely safe watching them from the ground.

Different famous showers. The most intense meteor showers are called meteor storms, like the Leonids, which can produce over 1,000 meteors in just one hour. There are over 900 suspected meteor showers tracked by scientists, though only about 100 are well established.

Easy to find. Organizations like NASA keep track of when meteor showers happen and share maps online so you can find out when and where to watch them from your location.