34 Shooting Stars and Comets Fun Facts About Space

• Because who doesn’t like to learn fun facts about space?

These are all the fun facts about space including shooting stars and comets. Do you think you know all the facts on this list?

1. A shooting star is a streak of light we see move quickly across the night sky.
2. A shooting star can also be called a meteor. Maybe this is one of fun facts about space you knew?
3. Shooting stars or meteors aren’t like real stars at all but only a tiny piece of “dust” burning away in the Earth’s upper air.
4. Some meteors can become very bright but they disappear in seconds, burning away long before they fall to the ground. 
5. A meteor moving into the upper air sets up so much heat by friction against the air that it catches fire and burns away. 
6. Meteors usually move around the sun in bunches. 
7. Then the earth moves through one of these meteor bunches, it collects lost of pieces of that “dust” and the result is a shower of shooting stars. 
8. Meteor showers happen several times per year but the best time of the year to see them is in the first part of August because the Earth moves through a dense bunch. 
9. Any dark, clear sky night in between July and about August 17th is a great time to catch (see) shooting stars. This is the best of the fun facts about space!
10. Meteors can appear at any moment.
11. Meteors come from bodies called comets. 
12. Comets also move around the sun but not like other planets. 
13. A comet is a lump of ice mixed with the “dust.”
14. As a comet moves through space, it leaves a trail of the “dust” behind. 
15. The dust the comets leave as they move is the same “dust” we see as shooting stars, as they fall into the Earth’s air.
16. Comets are very far away so they don’t move fast through the sky in the same way as a meteor or shooting star.
17. To see a comet move at all, you’d have to watch it for many hours. Sounds kind of like watching grass grow. 
18. Comets have a strange rotation. 
19. A comet will sometimes be much closer to the sun than the Earth and at other times, it will be much further away.
20. Some comets only take a few years to get around the sun.
21. It takes some comets many hundreds or even thousands of years to travel around the sun. This has got to be the craziest of the fun facts about space. 
22. A comet only shines when it’s being lit up by the sun meaning it is only bright when it’s close to us. 
23. When a comet is far away, it becomes so faint that we cannot see it at all. 
24. When a comet is far from the sun, it’s cold and nothing more than a frozen lump.
25. When a comet gets closer to the sun and is warmed, the ice lump is surrounded by gas and creates what we call the comet’s head.
26. A really large comet will grow a long tail that stretches away from the sun. 
27. Some comets have become so bright, they cast a shadow. (No comets like this have been seen for many years now.)
28. Most comets are fairly faint and many of them never grow a tail at all. 
29. The best known comet was Hailey’s Comet, named after astronomer Edmond Hailey who first found out that it moves around the sun.
30. Hailey’s comet comes back every 75 years and has been seen very often. This is the best of the fun facts about space and hopefully we can all see it in the future. 
31. Hailey’s Comet was in the sky just before the battle of Hastings in 1066 when William the Conqueror landed in England.
32. When it last came back in 1986, five spaceships were sent to it and one of them went right through the comet’s head and in turn sent back pictures of the icy lump in the middle.
33. Hailey’s Comet has moved far away from the sun and is too faint to be seen. (However, we do know where it is.) 
34. Hailey’s Comet will be back in 2061 and you may have the chance to see it for yourself.

What’s the best of all the fun facts about space? Do you want to see more articles like this?