As comets orbit the Sun, they shed an icy, dusty debris stream along their orbit. If Earth travels through this stream, we will see a meteor shower. Depending on where Earth and the stream meet, meteors would appear to fall from a particular place in the sky. Meteor showers are named by the constellation from which meteors appear to fall, a spot in the sky astronomers call the radiant. For instance, the radiant for the Leonid meteor shower is located in the constellation Leo. The Perseid meteor shower is so named because meteors appear to fall from a point in the constellation Perseus.

Shooting stars and falling stars are both names that people have used for many hundreds of years to describe meteors. They actually are intense streaks of light across the night sky caused by small bits of interplanetary rock and debris called meteoroids crashing and burning high in Earth's upper atmosphere.

The ideal time to view is after sunset and before sunrise