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What are meteors?

Meteors come from streams of particles that travel around the sun in defined orbits, that cross the orbit of the earth at some point. As the earth revolves around the sun, it encounters different streams at the same point in its orbit. When the earth passes through the orbit of the stream, it scoops into its atmosphere some of the particles, and that makes a meteor shower.

Although only about ten meteor showers are well known and produce meteor showers worth watching, dozens of different showers have been identified. The meteors’ location among the stars gives a shower its name. For example, meteors of the Leonid showers appear to radiate from a region in Leo; the August Perseids from a region in Perseus, and so on.