A meteor, also known as a shooting star, is actually space debris mostly left behind by comets. As Earth orbits around the sun, (at 66,000 M.P.H.) it periodically goes through areas of large debris fields. As earth travels through these debris fields pieces of debris enter the atmosphere and heat to the point where they actually incandesce, or give off short bursts of bright light. This occurs as they literally burn up in the atmosphere providing the source of light we see.

Actually, the term meteor refers to the streak of light, not the debris itself. The debris is known as a meteoroid. A meteoroid that actually reaches Earth is referred to as a meteorite. The larger the piece of debris, the better the chance for it to reach Earths surface. Gets kind of confusing with 3 different names for a single piece of debris!

Meteoroids range in size from a single molecule to pieces the size of a football field. Anything larger would be considered an asteroid. The vast majority of space debris that earth comes in contact with is simply dust particles.

So why do we see a an extremely small meteor caused by such a small bit of matter? Well it is actually a very simple process. Space dust particles have very high mass (think of it as weight to volume ratio) and are traveling at an extremely high rate of speed. If thet were traveling slowly through the atmosphere, there would be no light to see.

Meteoroids enter the atmosphere at a rate of between 7 to 45 miles per second. That speed equates to as much as 162,000 M.P.H.!! They can travel at this rate very easily in the vacuum of space. The Earths atmosphere offers resistance to the space debris causing it to slow quickly. As it slows, and Earths atmosphere compresses in front of it, large amounts of heat is generated. Heat levels of as much as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit can be reached in milliseconds. This causes the meteoroid to reach its boiling point; thus being vaporized. The result of this extreme heat forces the molecules to change state (both the meteoroid and the atmosphere) into glowing ionized particles. As they then recombine they release energy in the form of light to form a bright glowing tail. The tail is only a few feet wide but because of the high speed involved, may be many miles long. It is these ionized particles that are of particular interest to hams. VHF, and even UHF, signals can be bounced off of them in order to make very long range contacts. Since they do not last long a contact can be elusive.

The Leonid meteor shower is an event caused by the Earth passing through an especially dusty area of space. Other meteor showers are not nearly as spectacular to see or to use for VHF & UHF communication reflectors.

The unusually high level of space dust that earth passes through in November has been left behind by the Temple-Tuttle comet which passes near Earths orbit on a 33 year cycle.

To view any meteor shower, you must be in a dark location and look in the proper direction. Local news and weather announcements nearly always cover these cosmic events are tell you the best time and direction for viewing. The bad news, for most of us, is that the peak viewing times can be in the very early morning hours when most of us are sleeping. However, it is worth loosing some sleep to see this fantastic sight. But then hams might well be awake but sitting in front of the VHF and UHF equipment running High Speed Meteor Scatter (HSMS) software with the equipment to make contacts out to 1000 miles or more. All in just a few seconds!

Amazing, simply amazing!