"William Morrison - From Out of This World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrison William)

A comet is usually seen in the shy with a bright head and a long glowing tail. Some comets have a life of
many centuries. But when they break up, we sometimes find a meteorite swarm in their place. Not all
comets change into meteor swarms, and not all swarms come from comets, but many do.
Besides meteor swarms, there are many stray meteors, lone wolves that travel through space alone.
When a swarm hits the earth's atmosphere, you have a "shower" of shooting stars. When a stray meteor
hits, you see just one star at a time.
Now, most of the swarms and strays seem to come from our own solar system; that is, from the
space between the sun and the different planets. Some may come from other stars, but scientists aren't
sure of that yet, and they are still studying the question.
Cameras are being used that take a picture of a shooting star at the same time from two different
points. From the pictures, itтАЩs possible to figure out where the shooting star hits the air, and how fast it's
traveling. Other pictures tell us what kind of light the hot meteor gives out. From the kind of light, we can
figure what the meteor is made of, even if it never lands on the earth.
Radar is another method used for tracing meteorites. Radar follows the path of a meteor, and in
some cases scientists have been able to watch how the meteor is slowed up by the friction with the air.
Still other fact-finders fly up to meet the shooting stars. At the time of year when showers of meteors
occur, these scientists fly up in Army planes and take photographs with aerial reconnaissance cameras.
They are able to watch what happens when the meteor hits the air, gives a flash of light, splits in two, and
grows bright again.
All these methods help tell scientists what a meteor is made of, from what direction it comes, how
fast it is going, and how big it is. As they get more information, they can figure out how old the meteor is,
where it came from, and other important facts.
All in all, shooting stars have many messages for us, telling us a great deal about out what is going on
in space millions of miles away. Same day, when men travel through space themselves in rocket ship,
much of this information will be just as vital as information about icebergs is to the sailors on an ocean
liner.
Until then, shooting stars are important chiefly because of the flashes of light they shed on our
knowledge of the universe. They light up not only the night sky, but our minds as well.

тАФWilliam Morrison