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The beauty of a shooting star crossing the night sky is undeniable, but while for some people this is very romantic, for others it just suggests a bad omen. The understanding of the shooting star in different parts of the world is both varied and suggestive. Thus, westerners often make a wish when they see a falling star, while in other traditions, any shooting star represents a sign that someone dies. Yet, although we give all sorts of explanations to such sky events, they have a very reasonable and easy to understand scientific background. Beautiful and great as a shooting star may be, it is just a false star. A shooting star is a meteoroid, or some form of debris that enters Earth's atmosphere and gets on fire. The friction of the air masses, the ram pressure and the presence of the oxygen associated with the incredible speed of the meteoroid cause the star-like appearance. Thus, the combustion of the shooting star is complete before reaching the surface of the planet. Larger meteoroids that don't burn completely because of their size fall on the ground causing crater formations. Such falling stars are known as meteors. Scientists can identify the chemical structure of a shooting star by observing the light specter during the descent as well as the trajectory through the atmosphere. Though noticeable with the naked eye on the dark night sky only, meteoroids and meteors have been reported during the day, but this time they are detected only by radio signals, with the sunlight preventing their observation otherwise. Thus, scientists have concluded that a shooting star can be light and fragile like a snowball or heavy and dense because of the hard metal core. A very unusual phenomenon is that of a shooting star that passes through just a sector of the atmosphere without burning completely before resuming its journey in outer space. A shooting star with a high burning intensity is called a fireball and the measurements are made by comparing the light intensity of the meteor with the light normally reflected by a planet. As beautiful as it may look, a shooting star has a huge destructive potential if it is not totally burned during the flight through the atmosphere. Past collisions were devastating for ecosystems, with great flora and fauna damage; if such a shooting star fell in a city, the impact would be that of a bomb dropping, with the intensity of the explosion varying according to the size of the meteorite.
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