A "falling star" or a "shooting star" has nothing at all to do with a star! These amazing streaks of light you can sometimes see in the night sky are caused by tiny bits of dust and rock called …

Most meteors glow for only a few seconds prior to burning up before hitting the Earth's surface. On most dark nights, meteors can be seen. The chance of seeing a meteor with the unaided …

This photograph shows one of the meteorites which survived the "Chicago Fireball".

Star watching has occupied humans from the earliest times. Our ancestors studied the night sky and saw shapes and patterns among the stars. They often made up stories to explain what …

A meteoroid is a piece of stone-like or metal-like debris which travels in outer space. Most meteoroids are no bigger than a pebble.

A theory that is attracting considerable attention states that gamma-ray bursts occur as the result of material shooting towards Earth at almost the speed of light as the result of a hypernova. A …

Comets follow a regular orbit around the Sun. If the comet nucleus is pulled into an orbit which carries it close to the Sun, the solar heat will cause the outer layers of the icy nucleus to …

The black holes may provide quasars with their energy. Quasars are so bright that they drown out the light from all other stars in the same galaxy. The word quasar is short for quasi-stellar radio …

It is estimated that hundreds of millions of pieces of space trash are now floating through our region of the solar system.

Latin Name English Name or Description; Andromeda: Princess of Ethiopia: Antlia: Air pump: Apus: Bird of Paradise: Aquarius ...