NOT SOPHIE (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
not_sophie) wrote2025-04-15 12:49 am
not_sophie) wrote2025-04-15 12:49 am
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How? Why? Stories of Science (4th year): About Earth and Space
Last Update: 6/26/2025 (Why shooting stars are fake. Yup. None of your wishes will ever come true.)
Here's the last section of this book before my normie schoolchild book practice moves on to something that's a little harder and hopefully more interesting too. Like, I might have mostly fiction after I finish this up, so that'll be nice.
Until otherwise mentioned (AKA until the final storie) the author of this section is Harumi Uenami and the artist (that you cannot enjoy without buying the book sry) is Naoki Nishiyama.
Anyway, on with the blurbs. I hated the first one with all my heart because it was unbelievably boring even though I actually found most of the previous ones mildly interesting when they didn't just reinforce things I already knew. Warmth of air, ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. I want to die. Don't tell me how thunderstorms work if it's going to be this boring OH WAIT IT'S NOT EVEN ABOUT THUNDERSTORMS IT'S LITERALLY JUST WY DUZ WIND BLOW WHO CARES here you go
Why does wind blow?
Wind is thought of as something that blows randomly, but that is not at all the case. The wind blows very predictably based on specific conditions. So then, let's think about a time the wind blows.
When the heat is on and a room is warm, opening the window makes the cold air from outside blow in. Why does this happen?
When air warms up, it expands and becomes thinner. When it gets cold, the opposite happens: it gets smaller and full. The warm air in the room is thin, and the cold air outside is thick, so to try to get to the same thickness, the air outside the room moves inside.
In a similar fashion, what we call wind is just air moving from a place where it is thicker to a place where it is thinner.
When the sun warms the earth's surface, that heat warms up the air near the surface, causing it to become lighter and move upwards. After the warmed-up air rises up, it becomes thinner. Then, in the upper atmosphere, it cools, causing the air to flow back down. This movement of the air is what we can feel as "wind."
The wind blows to various places based on where the air is thick and where the air is thin. For example, on the seashore during the day, if the sun is shining, it will heat the air up, causing it to rise and the air to become thinner. Then, wind will blow from the difficult-to-warm-up sea. This is called a "sea breeze."
At night, the ocean is harder to cool than land, so it's the opposite of what it's like during the day -- air from the land heads towards the sea as blowing wind. This is a "land breeze."
Furthermore, during the winter, the continent of Asia cools down, and is full of cold, thick air. On the other hand, since the sea doesn't cool as well, compared to the land, the air from Asia moves towards the Pacific Ocean as a cold, northern wind. This wind is called "winter wind."
How do we make weather forecasts?
Have you ever heard things like, "This evening will have clear skies"? For a very long time, humans have noticed patterns in weather changes from observing their daily lives, and passed on their knowledge to younger generations. The people from back then, just like the people of today, wanted to know what the weather will be like tomorrow.
From the 17th century to the 19th century, tools were developed in Europe such as the thermometer, barometer (which measures how dense the air is), and hygrometer (which measures the humidity in the air). From these, we came to understand the connection between the weather, temperature, atmospheric pressure, and humidity.
In the 19th century, the telegraph and telephone were invented, so weather information such as the temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, and wind direction and speed could be exchanged with people from far away. And then, you could get weather information not just for where you live, but for all kinds of places, allowing us to create detailed weather maps.
When a weather map is created at regular time intervals, we can see how the weather is changing, and use that to predict how the weather will change in the future. For example, because Japan's weather moves from west to the east a lot, if it rains in Kyushu today, we can predict that it will probably rain in Tokyo tomorrow.
In order to accurately predict the weather, it's necessary to learn as much as we can about the way weather is changing, and to check things like the temperature and atmospheric pressure in as many places as possible.
In Japan, devices are set up all over the country to automatically measure temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, precipitation, wind direction, and wind speed. This system is called "AMeDAS" (Automated Meteorological Data Acquisition System).
Weather reports require more than just data on what's close to the ground, though -- they also need weather data from places high up in the sky. To do this, weather balloons are sent up to gather data, and the data can also be collected and send from airplanes in the sky.
The weather satellite that frequents weather reports on Japanese TV, "Himawari," also sends information from up in space, including pictures of the clouds and the temperatures of the clouds, ocean, and land. It looks into where the clouds that cause rain are, and also uses weather radar technology. On top of all this, it can also send Japan weather data from foreign countries and above the oceans.
Using all of this collected data, computers then calculate how the weather will change. A weather expert will double-check that result, and after adjusting it to take into account the terrain and special weather characteristics of each region, the weather forecast is created.
What's a mirage?
A long time ago, traveling the desert was putting your life on the line. Since there are no rivers or lakes, it's extremely difficult to find water there. While traveling the desert, the sight of an oasis with plenty of water just ahead would bring travelers great job. "Now I can drink to my fill. I'm saved!" However, once they reach the place they thought they saw an oasis, they find that there's nothing there. What in the world happened?
What the traveler thought was an oasis was something called a "mirage." What appeared to be water was actually nothing. Both above and below the horizon line, the sky can be seen. The part below the horizon is a reflection of the sky, which looks like a lake. Why does it appear this way to us?
Light normally moves in a straight line. However, in places that have thick air and thin air, light will instead bend. In the desert, the air closest to the surfaces becomes warm and thin. Further away from the surface, it's the opposite: the air is cold and thick. Because of this, the light from the sky bends, making it appear to the human eye as if it's also below.
There is another phenomenon that works the same way as the mirage of the desert. It is sometimes called "fleeing water." You can see it on the surface of faraway asphalt on hot days. It looks like the pavement is soaking wet. In this case, the view of the sky and cars get reflected and reversed, making the road look like it's become wet.
Opposite from the desert's mirages, mirages can also be seen when the air below is cold, and the air above is warm. For example, in Japan, a mirage can be seen from the city of Uozu, facing Toyama Bay. Here, the mirage occurs when warm air flows above the sea, still cold from snowmelt. The real scenery might appear stretched out to the side, or it could look like it's been flipped upside-down.
Why does the ocean's tide ebb and flow?
In the summer, when you go swimming in the ocean, you'll find that how far the water goes out in waves is different from time to time. When the waves go far out into the beach, it's called a "high tide." When the water is pulled back towards the open sea, it's called an "ebb tide."
Have you heard of "Newton's law of universal gravitation?" This law refers to the force that works to pull things closer to each other. We don't normally notice it, but anything with weight is pulled by universal gravitation.
Universal gravitation (usually called gravity) also works to pull between the Earth and the moon. Both high tides and ebb tides are caused by the moon's gravitational pull on Earth's waters.
The ocean waters on the side of the Earth that is closest to the moon will be pulled at the most, which creates a high tide. At the same time, at the opposite side of the Earth from that, there will also be a high tide. So why does that happen?
The moon revolves around the Earth, but the truth is that Earth is also pulled on and turned by the moon a little. Put a little bit of water in a cup, and rotate it as if you're drawing small circles in the air. That's how the Earth rotates. Can you see how the water along the edges of the cup each revolution moves a lot more? This is the same way that water on the opposite side of Earth from the moon becomes more active.
A high tide occurs because more of the Earth's ocean water is gathered in both places this way. And with less water in the areas between, those places become an ebb tide.
It's not just the moon, though -- the sun also pulls at our oceans with gravity. However, since the sun is much further away than the moon, its gravitational pull is only about half as powerful as the moon's.
During the new moon and the full moon, the sun, moon, and Earth are all lined up, so their gravitational pull combines. This causes the effect of the ebb and flow of the tides to be at its greatest. It is called the "spring tide." During the half moon, on the other hand, the gravitational pulls of the moon and the sun work against each other because of their placement, making the ebb and flow effect the weakest during this time. This is known as a "neap tide."
Between the South Pole and the North Pole, which is colder?
The South Pole and the North Pole are both the places on the Earth's surface that get the smallest amounts of sunlight. In the summer, the sun is out for a long time in both the North and South Pole, but because it shines at a slanted angle, not much of it actually reaches the surface. In the winter, the sun isn't out for very long, and some days it doesn't come out at all. Because of this, the temperature is low throughout the whole year.
Both the South Pole and North Pole are covered in ice in pictures, so people may think that there's no difference between how cold they are. However, the reality is that the South Pole is actually a lot colder. If we look at the average temperature over one year and compare the two, the South Pole is about 20 degrees lower. Furthermore, the lowest surface temperature ever recorded, -89 degrees Celsius, was at the Vostok Station. This station is also located at the South Pole.
So why is the South Pole colder? It's because the North Pole is mostly ice floating on the ocean, in contrast to the South Pole, which is an entire continent.
Almost the entire area we call the North Pole is on ice floating in the ocean. Below that ice is, of course, ocean water. Since the water hasn't frozen, that means the temperature isn't that low. It's just a bit below 0 degrees. This means that on the ice itself, the cold isn't quite that bad, either.
However, the South Pole is a continent, and is covered in thick layers of ice that formed a long time ago. The average layer of ice is 2450 meters deep, and the deepest parts surpass 4000 meters. High mountains also have lower temperatures than flat lands. The South Pole is like something sitting on top of a high mountain made out of ice, so it's very cold.
Furthermore, just like in Japan, the further inland from the sea you go, the colder it becomes. Since the South Pole is a continent, most of it is inland.
For all of these reasons, the ice-covered continent that is the South Pole is a lot colder than the ice floating atop the ocean that is the North Pole.
When and how was the Earth created?
Earth is one of the planets that revolves around the jun. The planets that are said to be Earth's brother" are Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, among other. Earth wad born when the sun was, along with its brother planets. That was at least 4.6 billion years ago.
At that time, floating gas gathered in space and gradually started to compress onto itself. Then it started to revolve around in circles, and the enter of that, a star was born. That star is the Sun. After that, gas and dust gathered together in a large disc shape around the sun.
This gas and debris eventually sticks together, become small boulders, and then they crash together, breaking apart and then clumping together all over again. These countless combinations can eventually lead to the boulder becoming very large, until they become a planet made out of boulders like Earth, Venus, and Mars. Furthermore, on the outside parts of the ring, planets made up of gas like Jupiter and Saturn are also created.
In this way, 46 billion years ago, Earth was one of the planets born alongside the sun.
When Earth had only just been made, the surface was covered with syrupy magma. Eventually iron and other heavy substances formed and sank into the center, and what remained on the outside cooled and hardened, into light boulders. Then, the steam that covered Earth also cooked into water, and it began to rain. Then that rainwater collected in places, it became the oceans
At this point, there weren't any living creatures on Earyh yet. So, when yo you think living creatures were born on Earth?
1) About 4 billion years ago
2) About 9 years ago this century
3) About 9 49 million years ago
The correct answer is #1. About four billion years ago, the first living creatures were born in the ocean Over a long period of time, those living things evolved over and over and over again, branching in to all sorts of different types of creatures. Animals and plants started to live on land about 450 million years ago.
Now then, when do you think we humans began to appear on Earth?
1. About 200 million year ago?
2. About 30 million years ago?
3. About 7 million years ago?
The correct answer is #3. The oldest human fossils we've found at around 7 million years old.
If we think about the 4.6 billion year history of the Earth as if it happened all on one day (w4 hours), with the Earth beginning at midnight and then the first living creatures would have appeared a little bit after 3 AM. After 9:30 PM, animals and plants would have begun to live on land, and humans would have made their appearance around 11:59PM.
Compared to the Earth's long history, humanity's history is very short! That said, humans can be a little too self-serving in how they go about things.
What makes shooting stars?
It is said that when you make a wish when a shooting star is visible, that wish will come true. However, since shooting stars appear without warning, and disappear quickly, we don't usually have much time to make a wish.
Those "shooting stars" are actually debris (such as dust or sand) from space flying into Earth's atmosphere. The temperature fo that debris becomes thousands of times higher due to the friction in the air, so it lights up. It only shines when it's burning, and after that it disappears, you can only see it flowing for a moment.
Almost all debris that becomes a shooting star is a remnant of a comet. A comet is a celestial body that revolves around the sun, like Earth and Mars do. Have you seen a picture of a star with a faint tail of light? That is a comet. That comet is actually a clump of things like ice and rock. When a comet nears the sun, gas and dust come off and trail behind it.
After a comet has passed by, it leaves behind a lot of small debris. That debris flies into the Earth's atmosphere, and becomes a shooting star. Even after lighting up like a shooting star, there are rocks that fall and aren't completely destroyed. These are called "meteorites." Meteorites are asteroids and fragments of them that fly into Earth's atmosphere.
In the solar system, outside of the eight large planets and their various moons, there are countless small celestial bodies, called asteroids. Asteroids vary a lot in size, with the largest ones being a little bit smaller than the moon.
In the distant past (65 million years ago), a giant meteorite fell to Earth. The effects of that meteorite greatly changed the climate, and it's thought that this caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Here's the last section of this book before my normie schoolchild book practice moves on to something that's a little harder and hopefully more interesting too. Like, I might have mostly fiction after I finish this up, so that'll be nice.
Until otherwise mentioned (AKA until the final storie) the author of this section is Harumi Uenami and the artist (that you cannot enjoy without buying the book sry) is Naoki Nishiyama.
Anyway, on with the blurbs. I hated the first one with all my heart because it was unbelievably boring even though I actually found most of the previous ones mildly interesting when they didn't just reinforce things I already knew. Warmth of air, ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. I want to die. Don't tell me how thunderstorms work if it's going to be this boring OH WAIT IT'S NOT EVEN ABOUT THUNDERSTORMS IT'S LITERALLY JUST WY DUZ WIND BLOW WHO CARES here you go
Why does wind blow?
Wind is thought of as something that blows randomly, but that is not at all the case. The wind blows very predictably based on specific conditions. So then, let's think about a time the wind blows.
When the heat is on and a room is warm, opening the window makes the cold air from outside blow in. Why does this happen?
When air warms up, it expands and becomes thinner. When it gets cold, the opposite happens: it gets smaller and full. The warm air in the room is thin, and the cold air outside is thick, so to try to get to the same thickness, the air outside the room moves inside.
In a similar fashion, what we call wind is just air moving from a place where it is thicker to a place where it is thinner.
When the sun warms the earth's surface, that heat warms up the air near the surface, causing it to become lighter and move upwards. After the warmed-up air rises up, it becomes thinner. Then, in the upper atmosphere, it cools, causing the air to flow back down. This movement of the air is what we can feel as "wind."
The wind blows to various places based on where the air is thick and where the air is thin. For example, on the seashore during the day, if the sun is shining, it will heat the air up, causing it to rise and the air to become thinner. Then, wind will blow from the difficult-to-warm-up sea. This is called a "sea breeze."
At night, the ocean is harder to cool than land, so it's the opposite of what it's like during the day -- air from the land heads towards the sea as blowing wind. This is a "land breeze."
Furthermore, during the winter, the continent of Asia cools down, and is full of cold, thick air. On the other hand, since the sea doesn't cool as well, compared to the land, the air from Asia moves towards the Pacific Ocean as a cold, northern wind. This wind is called "winter wind."
How do we make weather forecasts?
Have you ever heard things like, "This evening will have clear skies"? For a very long time, humans have noticed patterns in weather changes from observing their daily lives, and passed on their knowledge to younger generations. The people from back then, just like the people of today, wanted to know what the weather will be like tomorrow.
From the 17th century to the 19th century, tools were developed in Europe such as the thermometer, barometer (which measures how dense the air is), and hygrometer (which measures the humidity in the air). From these, we came to understand the connection between the weather, temperature, atmospheric pressure, and humidity.
In the 19th century, the telegraph and telephone were invented, so weather information such as the temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, and wind direction and speed could be exchanged with people from far away. And then, you could get weather information not just for where you live, but for all kinds of places, allowing us to create detailed weather maps.
When a weather map is created at regular time intervals, we can see how the weather is changing, and use that to predict how the weather will change in the future. For example, because Japan's weather moves from west to the east a lot, if it rains in Kyushu today, we can predict that it will probably rain in Tokyo tomorrow.
In order to accurately predict the weather, it's necessary to learn as much as we can about the way weather is changing, and to check things like the temperature and atmospheric pressure in as many places as possible.
In Japan, devices are set up all over the country to automatically measure temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, precipitation, wind direction, and wind speed. This system is called "AMeDAS" (Automated Meteorological Data Acquisition System).
Weather reports require more than just data on what's close to the ground, though -- they also need weather data from places high up in the sky. To do this, weather balloons are sent up to gather data, and the data can also be collected and send from airplanes in the sky.
The weather satellite that frequents weather reports on Japanese TV, "Himawari," also sends information from up in space, including pictures of the clouds and the temperatures of the clouds, ocean, and land. It looks into where the clouds that cause rain are, and also uses weather radar technology. On top of all this, it can also send Japan weather data from foreign countries and above the oceans.
Using all of this collected data, computers then calculate how the weather will change. A weather expert will double-check that result, and after adjusting it to take into account the terrain and special weather characteristics of each region, the weather forecast is created.
What's a mirage?
A long time ago, traveling the desert was putting your life on the line. Since there are no rivers or lakes, it's extremely difficult to find water there. While traveling the desert, the sight of an oasis with plenty of water just ahead would bring travelers great job. "Now I can drink to my fill. I'm saved!" However, once they reach the place they thought they saw an oasis, they find that there's nothing there. What in the world happened?
What the traveler thought was an oasis was something called a "mirage." What appeared to be water was actually nothing. Both above and below the horizon line, the sky can be seen. The part below the horizon is a reflection of the sky, which looks like a lake. Why does it appear this way to us?
Light normally moves in a straight line. However, in places that have thick air and thin air, light will instead bend. In the desert, the air closest to the surfaces becomes warm and thin. Further away from the surface, it's the opposite: the air is cold and thick. Because of this, the light from the sky bends, making it appear to the human eye as if it's also below.
There is another phenomenon that works the same way as the mirage of the desert. It is sometimes called "fleeing water." You can see it on the surface of faraway asphalt on hot days. It looks like the pavement is soaking wet. In this case, the view of the sky and cars get reflected and reversed, making the road look like it's become wet.
Opposite from the desert's mirages, mirages can also be seen when the air below is cold, and the air above is warm. For example, in Japan, a mirage can be seen from the city of Uozu, facing Toyama Bay. Here, the mirage occurs when warm air flows above the sea, still cold from snowmelt. The real scenery might appear stretched out to the side, or it could look like it's been flipped upside-down.
Why does the ocean's tide ebb and flow?
In the summer, when you go swimming in the ocean, you'll find that how far the water goes out in waves is different from time to time. When the waves go far out into the beach, it's called a "high tide." When the water is pulled back towards the open sea, it's called an "ebb tide."
Have you heard of "Newton's law of universal gravitation?" This law refers to the force that works to pull things closer to each other. We don't normally notice it, but anything with weight is pulled by universal gravitation.
Universal gravitation (usually called gravity) also works to pull between the Earth and the moon. Both high tides and ebb tides are caused by the moon's gravitational pull on Earth's waters.
The ocean waters on the side of the Earth that is closest to the moon will be pulled at the most, which creates a high tide. At the same time, at the opposite side of the Earth from that, there will also be a high tide. So why does that happen?
The moon revolves around the Earth, but the truth is that Earth is also pulled on and turned by the moon a little. Put a little bit of water in a cup, and rotate it as if you're drawing small circles in the air. That's how the Earth rotates. Can you see how the water along the edges of the cup each revolution moves a lot more? This is the same way that water on the opposite side of Earth from the moon becomes more active.
A high tide occurs because more of the Earth's ocean water is gathered in both places this way. And with less water in the areas between, those places become an ebb tide.
It's not just the moon, though -- the sun also pulls at our oceans with gravity. However, since the sun is much further away than the moon, its gravitational pull is only about half as powerful as the moon's.
During the new moon and the full moon, the sun, moon, and Earth are all lined up, so their gravitational pull combines. This causes the effect of the ebb and flow of the tides to be at its greatest. It is called the "spring tide." During the half moon, on the other hand, the gravitational pulls of the moon and the sun work against each other because of their placement, making the ebb and flow effect the weakest during this time. This is known as a "neap tide."
Between the South Pole and the North Pole, which is colder?
The South Pole and the North Pole are both the places on the Earth's surface that get the smallest amounts of sunlight. In the summer, the sun is out for a long time in both the North and South Pole, but because it shines at a slanted angle, not much of it actually reaches the surface. In the winter, the sun isn't out for very long, and some days it doesn't come out at all. Because of this, the temperature is low throughout the whole year.
Both the South Pole and North Pole are covered in ice in pictures, so people may think that there's no difference between how cold they are. However, the reality is that the South Pole is actually a lot colder. If we look at the average temperature over one year and compare the two, the South Pole is about 20 degrees lower. Furthermore, the lowest surface temperature ever recorded, -89 degrees Celsius, was at the Vostok Station. This station is also located at the South Pole.
So why is the South Pole colder? It's because the North Pole is mostly ice floating on the ocean, in contrast to the South Pole, which is an entire continent.
Almost the entire area we call the North Pole is on ice floating in the ocean. Below that ice is, of course, ocean water. Since the water hasn't frozen, that means the temperature isn't that low. It's just a bit below 0 degrees. This means that on the ice itself, the cold isn't quite that bad, either.
However, the South Pole is a continent, and is covered in thick layers of ice that formed a long time ago. The average layer of ice is 2450 meters deep, and the deepest parts surpass 4000 meters. High mountains also have lower temperatures than flat lands. The South Pole is like something sitting on top of a high mountain made out of ice, so it's very cold.
Furthermore, just like in Japan, the further inland from the sea you go, the colder it becomes. Since the South Pole is a continent, most of it is inland.
For all of these reasons, the ice-covered continent that is the South Pole is a lot colder than the ice floating atop the ocean that is the North Pole.
When and how was the Earth created?
Earth is one of the planets that revolves around the jun. The planets that are said to be Earth's brother" are Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, among other. Earth wad born when the sun was, along with its brother planets. That was at least 4.6 billion years ago.
At that time, floating gas gathered in space and gradually started to compress onto itself. Then it started to revolve around in circles, and the enter of that, a star was born. That star is the Sun. After that, gas and dust gathered together in a large disc shape around the sun.
This gas and debris eventually sticks together, become small boulders, and then they crash together, breaking apart and then clumping together all over again. These countless combinations can eventually lead to the boulder becoming very large, until they become a planet made out of boulders like Earth, Venus, and Mars. Furthermore, on the outside parts of the ring, planets made up of gas like Jupiter and Saturn are also created.
In this way, 46 billion years ago, Earth was one of the planets born alongside the sun.
When Earth had only just been made, the surface was covered with syrupy magma. Eventually iron and other heavy substances formed and sank into the center, and what remained on the outside cooled and hardened, into light boulders. Then, the steam that covered Earth also cooked into water, and it began to rain. Then that rainwater collected in places, it became the oceans
At this point, there weren't any living creatures on Earyh yet. So, when yo you think living creatures were born on Earth?
1) About 4 billion years ago
2) About 9 years ago this century
3) About 9 49 million years ago
The correct answer is #1. About four billion years ago, the first living creatures were born in the ocean Over a long period of time, those living things evolved over and over and over again, branching in to all sorts of different types of creatures. Animals and plants started to live on land about 450 million years ago.
Now then, when do you think we humans began to appear on Earth?
1. About 200 million year ago?
2. About 30 million years ago?
3. About 7 million years ago?
The correct answer is #3. The oldest human fossils we've found at around 7 million years old.
If we think about the 4.6 billion year history of the Earth as if it happened all on one day (w4 hours), with the Earth beginning at midnight and then the first living creatures would have appeared a little bit after 3 AM. After 9:30 PM, animals and plants would have begun to live on land, and humans would have made their appearance around 11:59PM.
Compared to the Earth's long history, humanity's history is very short! That said, humans can be a little too self-serving in how they go about things.
What makes shooting stars?
It is said that when you make a wish when a shooting star is visible, that wish will come true. However, since shooting stars appear without warning, and disappear quickly, we don't usually have much time to make a wish.
Those "shooting stars" are actually debris (such as dust or sand) from space flying into Earth's atmosphere. The temperature fo that debris becomes thousands of times higher due to the friction in the air, so it lights up. It only shines when it's burning, and after that it disappears, you can only see it flowing for a moment.
Almost all debris that becomes a shooting star is a remnant of a comet. A comet is a celestial body that revolves around the sun, like Earth and Mars do. Have you seen a picture of a star with a faint tail of light? That is a comet. That comet is actually a clump of things like ice and rock. When a comet nears the sun, gas and dust come off and trail behind it.
After a comet has passed by, it leaves behind a lot of small debris. That debris flies into the Earth's atmosphere, and becomes a shooting star. Even after lighting up like a shooting star, there are rocks that fall and aren't completely destroyed. These are called "meteorites." Meteorites are asteroids and fragments of them that fly into Earth's atmosphere.
In the solar system, outside of the eight large planets and their various moons, there are countless small celestial bodies, called asteroids. Asteroids vary a lot in size, with the largest ones being a little bit smaller than the moon.
In the distant past (65 million years ago), a giant meteorite fell to Earth. The effects of that meteorite greatly changed the climate, and it's thought that this caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.