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The meteorite has gained its fame from one of the world’s best-loved superheroes, Superman. The Man of Steel’s Achilles’ heel is the mineral kryptonite – and the villains in his life have probably thanked all the meteorites that encapsulated the small substance.

But what is a meteorite? And where does it come from?

The universe consists of heavenly bodies – mainly planets, galaxies, stars, and asteroids (rocky, metallic objects that look like rocks; also known as minor planets). Some of these asteroids take a one-way trip to Earth – should they decide to continue their suicidal collision course, they become meteoroids. When a meteoroid touches our atmosphere, the friction causes it to ignite, and like a match, and burns it.

Now by theory, the meteoroid is supposed to burn up completely. However, in most cases, it doesn’t. The leftover meteoroid has no other choice but to land on the Earth’s surface. It manifests itself as a falling or shooting star (at this point, it is now called a meteor), touches ground and voila! A freshly-landed meteorite is born.

Some of the meteorites have been analyzed. It has been confirmed that their points of origin are mostly lunar (from the moon) and/or Martian (from Mars). They may look like regular rocks, but it is living proof that the existence of other life forms may not be so impossible after all.

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The process occurring in a convection zone is similar to boiling water in a pot thus this is sometimes referred to as boiling zone. Outside the radiation zone, the temperature is much lower compared to the temperature within the region. From about 5 million degrees Kelvin, the temperature drops down to only about 2 million degrees Kelvin. However, this temperature is still relatively higher than within the convection region. What happens during the convection mechanism is that the hotter material near the radiation zone tends to rise. When this reaches the top of the convection region, it cools down and sinks again. This is a direct way to transfer energy and thus occurs much faster than in radiation zone.

The convection zone is considered to be the outermost layer of the interior portion of the sun. This layer extends to about 200,000 km up to the visible surface of the Sun known as the photosphere. When seen through a telescope, a white ball with some dark patches can be observed. These dark patches are termed as sunspots. The entire surface of this region is covered with convection cells similar to what one can be observed on the surface of boiling water. The bright and dark regions represent the hot rising and the cold sinking materials respectively.

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Venus

Actually, the planet Mercury has the same behavior of being visible at dawn and at dusk. However, it can only be observed during a few weeks in a year. Since Venus is much larger and closer to earth, it has earned the title.

Because of its proximity to the sun, Venus is always found on the same side of the sky. If the sun is just setting to the west, the “star” can only be found at the west too. Its sulfuric acid clouds are highly reflective, causing it to glow brightly.

Venus is usually called the earth’s twin in terms of size, composition and gravitational pull. However, the atmosphere of the Evening Star is too hostile for life to exist. The atmospheric pressure on its surface is about 90 times greater than the earth’s. The air is also mostly carbon dioxide.

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There is a vast bubble called the heliosphere in the interstellar medium which surrounds the solar system. This heliosphere is created by the solar winds.

The Sun's extended outer layer called the corona is an area composed of plasma whose temperatures could reach up to over 1 million degrees Celsius. As thermal collisions occur in this region of plasma, the particles contained in the inner corona will have a distribution and range of speeds that can be described by what is termed as a Maxwellian distribution. Particles within the corona can achieve energies that allow them to reach escape velocity and build an electric field that will accelerate ions to escape away from the Sun.

Solar winds are made up of two components. The first are the slow solar winds and the second are the fast solar winds. The slow solar winds are much denser than the fast solar winds. They are also more variable in intensity. Furthermore, they have a more complicated structure with huge scale structures as well as turbulent regions.

Slow solar winds have velocities of about 400 km/s while fast solar winds have velocities of about 750 km/s.

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The lunar month is used by different cultures around the world. In the Middle East, people mark the beginning of this month when a young crescent moon appears after a close pairing of a celestial body with the Sun occurs or maybe about one or a couple of days before. Egyptians determine the beginning of this month when the Moon is no longer visible before sunrise.

A lunar month is equivalent to a synodic month with an approximate length of 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 3 seconds. There other ways of interpreting this particular month.

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What are meteor storms?

Meteor storms are intense meteor showers. They may seem to radiate from just one point in the sky because the particles travel parallel to each other. Most meteor storms and showers are named after the constellation where they are nearest.

There are two particular meteor showers a stargazer should take note of:

The first would be the Perseids. It is the most regular and most visible of all the showers and is associated with a specific comet (the comet Swift-Tuttle). They peak between August 9 and 14 of every year and is said to have been observed approximately for the past 2000 years. The pre-dawn hours would be the best time to see them.

The second would be the Leonids and is claimed to be the most spectacular meteor shower. Connected with another comet (the comet Tempel-Tuttle), the meteors appear to radiate from one point – where the constellation Leo is. They say that the Leonid showers turn into a storm approximately every 33 years. But recent storm activity belies that theory as the last Leonid meteor storms were recorded in recent years: one storm in 1999 and two each for the years 2001 and 2002.

A meteor storm occurs unexpectedly. So should you be packing your bags for a meteor watching outside the city, be alert and scan the sky from time to time so that you won’t miss it.

Leonid Meteor Storm

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When these animals are in turn eaten by other animals, the energy stored in them is transferred to up the food chain. Food becomes the source of energy for humans and animals. Energy from the Sun was captured and stored by plants and animals that lived and died millions of years ago. Those plants and animals were changed to coal, oil, and natural gas. These materials, products of the long process of decomposition, are another form of chemical energy. This energy originally came from the energy of the Sun.

Solar energy is now being harnessed as a source of electricity for homes nowadays. It is also used as a source of power to run automobiles and calculators. Solar cells have been produced to use the energy of the Sun. Being the main source of energy on Earth, the Sun also gives off heat and light in form of radiant energy. Radiant energy is energy that travels towards all directions from the source.

The most common form of radiant energy is the use of x-ray. X-rays pass through one’s body and registers on a photographic film. A microwave oven in houses also uses radiant energy in the form of microwave radiation that can cook food in a very short time. Radio, television, and lasers are other forms of radiant energy.

The energy from the Sun is also used by humans to provide the body with Vitamin D for the prevention of rickets, a bone illness and other diseases. The energy on Earth comes from the Sun. This energy is vital to humans, plants, and animals.

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Gravity is a natural occurrence in which physical objects are attracted toward one another. This attraction is proportional to the objects' masses. Since the mass of each planet is different, the gravitational pull on an object will be different on each planet as well. Hence, an individual's weight would vary depending on what planet they are on. Below is a list of the gravitational pulls of each planet from strongest to weakest.

1. Jupiter has an incredible gravitational pull of 24.79 m/s2. This is nearly 2.53 times the gravity of what we experience here on planet Earth. If you weighed 100 lbs on Earth you would weigh 236.4 lbs on Jupiter.

2. Neptune has a gravitational pull of 11.15 m/s2 compared to Earth's pull of 9.81 m/s2. An individual weighing 100 lbs on Earth would weigh 112.5 lbs on Neptune.

3. The planet Saturn has a gravitational pull of 10.44 m/s2. A human weighing 100 lbs on Earth would weigh an additional 6.4 lbs on Saturn.

4. Our home planet of Earth has a gravitational pull of 9.81 m/s2. If the gravitational force was cut in half, objects would fall at half the speed that they currently do.

5. Venus has a slightly lower gravity than Earth with a pull of 8.87 m/s2. If you weighed 100 lbs on Earth you would weigh in at 90.7 lbs on Venus.

6. Uranus' gravitational pull of 8.69 m/s2 is very close to that of Venus. Similarly, if you weighed 100 lbs on Earth you would weigh 88.9 lbs on Uranus.

7. Mars has a very low gravitational pull of only 3.71 m/s2. If you weigh 100 lbs on Earth you would only come in around 38 lbs on the red planet.

8. At 3.7 m/s2, Mercury's gravitational pull almost exactly the same as that of Mars. Someone weighing 100 lbs on Earth would only weigh 38 lbs on Mercury. Gravity on Mercury is therefore 2.65 times less than what we experience here on Earth.

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