Michael DiBacco, age 10, of Niagara Falls, Ont., Canada, for his question:

HOW DO METEOR SHOWERS OCCUR?

When you watch the starry heavens for an hour or so, you are sure to see at least one meteor streak across the sky. Some people call it a shooting star or a falling star. Chances are it is a grain of solid minerals, glowing with heat as it plummets down through the atmosphere, usually alone. But on certain nights dozens of meteors arch down from the same region in the sky. These are called meteor showers.

    Most experts agree that meteor showers are caused by passing comets. As a visiting comet swings close around the sun, long streamers of dusty fragments are left behind by its tail. When the orbiting earth crosses this debris, tiny fragments are captured by gravity and come plunging down as meteors. Together they create a shower of meteors.