What are "shooting stars"?

What are "shooting stars"?

Professor Gizmo (Amazing Science Presentations) gives expert video advice on: Why do we need to wear a space suit in space?; Why do things float around in space?; Why do stars twinkle? and more...

If you have never seen a shooting star, it would look like a light that would appear in the sky and then just start moving across the sky. Sometimes they move at tremendous speeds. So when you see a shooting star, you're really not seeing a shooting star, but you are seeing a particle falling from space, and that particle is being heated up by the earth's atmosphere to thousands of degrees. This shooting star gets very hot, and gives off lots of light. The shooting star just disintegrates a lot of the time, but occasionally it doesn't fall to the earth. So shooting star is misnamed but they sure are nice looking in the sky.