Joe's Big Idea Mon August 13, 2012 Summer Science: What's A
Meteor Shower? Originally published on Mon August 13, 2012 3:23
am NPR science correspondent Joe Palca is on a mission this
summer to answer the deep, burning questions of summertime. So
far he's taught us how to build a campfire, explained the best
way to roast a perfect marshmallow and explored the icy mystery
of brain freeze. In this latest installment, Palca is looking
toward the skies. Just what is a meteor shower? Meteor showers
occur several times during the year. The latest one, the
Perseids, peaked just this past weekend. To answer the question,
Palca didn't trek up to a fancy telescope; he took a trip to
Venice Beach in California. Meteors are pieces of space debris
that plow into the Earth's atmosphere. Most of this debris is no
bigger than a grain of sand on the beach, but sometimes they're
big chunks of rock. Often these meteors come from junk spewed
out by comets as they orbit the sun. Comets are basically balls
of ice and small clumps