Meteors are actually chunks of rock and dust, left by passing comets.
When the Earth travels along its orbit, it runs into clouds of this debris. Due to the high relative speed between the Earth and the meteors, they glow brightly as they burn up high in the Earth's atmosphere. In mid November, there is an annual meteor shower called the Leonid Meteor Shower, or simply, The Leonids. The Leonid shower gets its name because the meteors appear to be coming from the constellation Leo. The comet responsible for the Leonid meteor shower is the comet Temple-Tuttle, which passed close by the Earth in 1998.