Answered by: Heidi Hammel

A "shooting star" is not actually related to stars at all. It is a small bit of an asteroid or comet that is hitting the Earth's atmosphere! Another name for a "shooting star" is a meteor. Most meteors are created by tiny rocks or iceballs, often no bigger than a grain of sand. The actual bit of stuff that hits the atmosphere is a "meteoroid." If a bit is big enough to make it all the way to the ground intact, then we call that intact piece on the ground a "meteorite." Meteors sometimes come in "showers" or "storms," like the famous Perseid shower every August. These storms happen when the Earth travels through the path of a comet. (In the case of the Perseids, the comet is named "Swift-Tuttle" after the two astronomers who discovered it).

--Heidi Hammel, planetary astronomer