Shooting stars – News, Research and Analysis – The Conversation

September 29, 2026

An autumn stargazing forecast: how to make the best of our night sky

Alix Violet Freckelton, University of Birmingham

A look at the night sky forecast to motivate you to dust off your telescope for the darker nights of autumn.

A blaze of light streaks across the sky, but what is it? Wendy Miller/Flickr

May 12, 2025

Comet, rocket, space junk or meteor? Here’s how to tell your fireballs apart

Michael J. I. Brown, Monash University

There are telltale clues to help you work out what just blazed overhead.

Meteor shower during the 2015 Perseids. Shutterstock / Belish

July 26, 2023

Meteor showers – it’s worth looking out for ‘shooting stars’ all year round

M. Julia Suso López, Universitat de València

What is a shooting star? Where do these bright moving bodies come from? How and when can we observe this astronomical phenomenon?

Some stars travel at high speeds through the universe and sometimes leave spectacular clouds of dust and gas in their wake. NASA, ESA and R. Sahai (NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

January 6, 2022

Real shooting stars exist, but they aren’t the streaks you see in a clear night sky

Idan Ginsburg, Georgia State University

Hypervelocity stars were discovered only 15 years ago and are the closest things in existence to real shooting stars. They travel at millions of miles per hour, so fast that they can escape from galaxies.

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