During the night of August 11th, a meteor shower called 'Perseids' might put up a memorable show. After the moon sets, which occurs around 1:00 AM local time, it might be possible to see up to 200 'shooting stars' per hour. Below, what you need to know about this astronomical event.

\section{What is a shooting star?}
Despite their name, shooting stars are actually small rocks (meteoroids) falling towards the Earth due to our planet's gravitational attraction. As they move rapidly through the atmosphere, they reach very high temperatures due to friction with air particles. This makes them burn and become visible to the human eye. The trail they leave is called 'Meteor'. Due to their tiny size, they usually almost completely burn in a fraction of a second. In some very exceptional cases, large meteors can continue the hot descent and hit the ground. If they also survive the crash, they get promoted immediately to the 'meteorites' class. Generally speaking a meteoroid producing a meteor needs to be at least as large as a marble to reach the Earth and eventually become a meteorite. 
Some Burning facts: 
\begin{itemize}
\item Average meteorite velocity: 30000 miles/hour (48000 km/h)
\item Max temperature: 3000 F (1650 C)
\item The \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Crater}{Meteor Crater} in Arizona was formed 50000 years ago by an object 160 feet (50 meters) across
\item ... yes, impacts like the one that produced the Meteor Crater are extremely rare 
\end{itemize}

