To find answers to those and other questions, Education World recommends some of the best World Wide Web sites on meteors, comets, amateur astronomy, and other fascinating topics. Meteors, or shooting stars, are space debris that enter Earth's atmosphere and leave visible trails. On any given night, an observer might see a few sporadic meteors each hour. At times, however, the rate of visible meteors is much greater.
Astronomers call such periods meteor showers.
To learn more about meteor showers and how to observe them, Education World recommends the following Web sites. This Web page is mainly for beginning and intermediate astronomers. The explanation about the nature of meteors is non-technical yet complete. Instructions on preparing to watch a meteor shower and tips on record keeping make this a good site to begin the study of meteors. During meteor showers, most of the meteors appear to originate from one particular point in the sky, called the radiant.