What does a meteor look like?

Question

I heard there was gonna be a meteor shower tonight, so I took some blankets out and layed in the grass, searching for them. After staying out for about a half hour, I thought it was useless to wait any longer...but then, there was a big red dot, with a blue and yellow flame, shooting across the sky and it left a pretty pink streak! Was it a meteor?

Answer 1

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap08010...

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap06111...

Answer 2

Meteors look like bright streaks of light in the sky - some people call them "shooting stars" or "falling stars".

What you saw was a meteor.

The bright streak of colours and light is from the meteoroid burning up in our atmosphere from friction with the air.

Most meteoroids are small - maybe the size of a golf ball or even smaller.  But they leave a bright streak because they vaporize almost completely in the upper atmosphere.

Sometimes, a meteoroid that is a little larger (maybe the size of a grapefruit or a watermelon) actually survives the trip through the atmosphere and lands on the ground - then it is called a meteorite.

Answer 3

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=h...

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=h...

http://biorust.com/tutorials/cinema4d-py...

http://see.msfc.nasa.gov/sparkman/Images...

it really looks like a rock. They just enter our atmosphere, in the process making craters on earth. Like on the moon.(last picture)

use the links to view pictures.