New data about Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft finally confirms what's been a long-held theory about where shooting stars come from: comets.
Although scientists have long believed that the dust and particles from comets creates the meteoroids that we see as streaking "stars" across the sky, this new data proves that theory.
Shooting stars are objects made up of interplanetary dust (IPD). They're classified as meteoroids when they measure smaller than asteroids. When these meteoroids enter Earth's atmosphere, they develop a tail behind them, which causes us to see a shooting star as a streak in the sky.
Rosetta's COSIMA instrument recently collected dust and particles from Comet 67P. An analysis of that dust showed the very same particles we find in the interplanetary dust that makes up shooting stars, including the annual Perseids from Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle and the Leonids from 55P/Tempel-Tuttle.
These "fluffy and porous" particles are about .002 inches wide and rich in sodium.
"There has been a long-standing dispute of whether the source of IPDs are solely comets or also asteroids," says the European Space Agency's Rita Schultz. "Our results imply that they have cometary origin. Another source would not be required."
