8

NOT

SCIENCE
Quarter 2 - Module 6
Meteor Showers
Science – Grade 8
Alternative Delivery Mode
Quarter 2 – Module 6: Meteor Showers
First Edition, 2020

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Published by the Department of Education – Division of Gingoog City

Division Superintendent: Jesnar Dems S. Torres, PhD, CESO VI
Development Team of the Module

Writer(s): Marlou Vy R. Paz

Reviewer(s): Nilda U. Villegas, EPS – Science

Florida D. Arias, PhD, PSDS

Illustrator(s): Jay Michael A. Calipusan, PDO II

Layout Artist: Virra Jill V. Durado

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VI Schools Division Superintendent

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Members: Nilda U. Villegas, EPS – Science

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Jay Michael A. Calipusan, PDO II
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 8

Science
Quarter 2 - Module 6
Meteor Showers
 Table of Contents
What I Need to Know ............................................................................................................................. i
How to Learn from this Module .......................................................................................................... .ii
Icons of this Module .............................................................................................................................. .ii
What I Know (Pre-Test)… .................................................................................................................. .iii

Lesson: 1
Occurrence of Meteor Showers …………………………………..1
What I Need to Know …………………………………………………………………. 1
What’s New: Activity 1 – Shower Splash Ideas! .…………………………………….2
What Is It …………………………………………………………………………………..2-4
What I Have Learned: Activity 2- I Know It!..…………………………………………..4
What I can Do: Activity 3– Draw me a Meteor Shower!……………………………...5

Summary ....................................................................................................................................................5
Assessment: (Post-Test)........................................................................................................................6
Key to Answers ........................................................................................................................................7
References…. ...........................................................................................................................................8
 What I Need to Know

After going through this module you should be able to:

1. Explain the regular occurrence of meteor showers.
2. Draw an illustration of a meteor shower
3. Appreciate the beauty of meteor shower in the night sky.

How to Learn from this Module

To achieve the objectives cited above, you are to do the following:
• Take your time reading the lessons carefully.
• Follow the directions and/or instructions in the activities and exercises diligently.
• Answer all the given tests and exercises.

i
Icons of this Module

What I Need to This part contains learning objectives that

Know are set for you to learn as you go along the
module.

What I know This is an assessment as to your level of

knowledge to the subject matter at hand,
meant specifically to gauge prior related
Knowledge
What’s In This part connects previous lesson with that
of the current one.

What’s New An introduction of the new lesson through

various activities, before it will be presented
to you

What is It These are discussions of the activities as a

way to deepen your discovery and under-
standing of the concept.

What’s More These are follow-up activities that are in-

tended for you to practice further in order to
master the competencies.

What I Have Activities designed to process what you

Learned have learned from the lesson

What I can do These are tasks that are designed to show-

case your skills and knowledge gained, and
applied into real-life concerns and situations.

ii
 What I Know (Pre-test)
Direction: For each item, encircle the letter of the correct answer.

Direction: For each item, encircle the letter of the correct answer.

1. A meteor shower occurs when

A. a meteor is about to get married
B. the earth passes through the asteroid belt
C. the head of a comet hits the earth’s atmosphere
D. the earth passes through a swarm of dust particles in space, the remnants of a
comet, once a year
2. What causes a meteor shower?
A. pockets of hydrogen and helium gas trapped within the solar system
B. remnants of broken – up comets
C. Remnants of broken – up asteroids
D. the break – up of man-made satellites falling back into Earth’s atmosphere
3. What are meteor showers?
A. Dying star
B. Glowing debris in the Earth's atmosphere.
C. An eruption of rocks and dust in the sky.
D. Rocks from space found on Earth.
4. Approximately how many meteor showers occur each year?
A. 60 meteor showers B. 20 meteor showers
B. 10 meteor showers D. 30 meteor showers
5. Meteor showers occur only on Earth.
A. True B. False
6. What is the name of the most visible meteor shower which occurs
every August? D. Eta Aquarids
A. Geminids B. Leonids C. Persieds D. Eta Aquarids
7. What are meteor showers named after?
A. The month which they occur in.
B. The individual who discovered it.
C. The constellation which they appear to be falling from.
D. Roman gods.
8. What is it called when a meteor shower has a frequency of at least one meteor per
second?
A. meteor storm C. The end of the world
B. meteor shower D. meteor outburst
9. What is the common name for random meteor storms (not annual meteor showers)?
A. meteor flash C. heavy meteor storm
B. surprise meteor shower D. meteor outburst
10. What do you call the brief glow behind a meteor?
A. Wake B. Flash C. afterglow D. trail

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Lesson
1 Occurrence of Meteor Shower
What I Need to Know?
Objective:

Students must be able to explain the regular occurrence of meteor showers.

What’s New?
Activity 1 – Shower Splash Ideas?
Direction: Examine the picture below write at least four words that describes a
Meteor Showers.

https://www.google.com/search?q=meteor+showers&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwigwOT446HqAhVK7ZQKHZFwCToQ2-
cCegQIABAA&oq=meteor+showers&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIHCAAQsQMQQzICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggA
MgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADoECAAQQzoFCAAQsQNQyOsLWJb-
C2DE_wtoAHAAeACAAYIBiAHwBpIBAzAuN5gBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1n&sclient=img&ei=oB73XqDwM
Mra0wSR4aXQAw&bih=618&biw=1366#imgrc=XVkwo7qK_eYrlM

METEOR SHOWERS

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 What is it?
Meteor Shower
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which several meteors are noticed to extend
from one point in the night sky. It occurs when the Earth moves across a comet's path and
passes through the stream of debris and dust released by the comet. The meteors in a
shower become visible to start from one area of the sky called the radiant. It is usually
named after the constellation in which the radiant situated. It occurs at the same time each
year. Usual meteor showers result in ten to fifty meteors per hour. Mostly the best time to
observe is in the early morning.

https://www.google.com/search?q=meteor+shower&source= https://www.google.com/search?q=meteor+shower&source=lnms&tbm
lnms&tbm=isch =isch
&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiZ65KF16HqAhWUc3AKHQh0AqMQ
_AUoAXoE &sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiZ65KF16HqAhWUc3AKHQh0AqMQ_AUoAXoE
CBIQAw&biw=1366&bih=618#imgrc=dwrS
kg2U2s9zwM CBIQAw&biw=1366&bih=618#imgrc=OjyaSFz8U9muUM

Figure 1. Meteor Showers

Meteor showers occur when asteroids and comet particles enter Earth's atmosphere in a
speedy movement. When they strike the atmosphere, meteors touch air particles and
produce friction, heating the meteors. The heat gasifies meteors, making what we call falling
stars.

While there are random bits of stuff strike Earth from all directions, there are also uniformed
timed "meteor showers" when astronomers can construct better predictions about the
number of meteors that will hit the Earth, and from what direction. The key contrast is that
meteor showers occur when the Earth crashes into the trail of particles left behind by a
comet or asteroid. It depends on where the trail of particles falls in a particular year, meteor
showers can be more or less extreme.

Some astronomers sometimes find new meteor showers, such as the case of the
Camelopardalids in 2014.

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There are predictions that shower occurs up to 200 meteors per hour, but in reality, it ended
up being a quiet shower for amateur astronomers. The shower became active after the
debris trail of Comet intersected with Earth. (The debris trail of comets can transfer because
of the influence of Jupiter, or other reasons.)

The majority of meteors become visible at around 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) up. Few large
meteors splatter, causing a brighter flash called a fireball, which can often be seen during
day time and heard up to 30 miles (48 km) away. On average, meteors can move through
the atmosphere at about 30,000 mph (48,280 kph) and reach temperatures of about 3,000
degrees Fahrenheit (1,648 degrees Celsius).

Almost all meteors are very small, some as tiny as a grain of sand, so they fall into pieces in
the air. Bigger ones that reach the Earth's surface are called meteorites and are rare.
Whether an object divides depends on its composition, speed, and angle of entry. A speedy
meteor at an oblique angle (slanting rather than straight-on) put up greater stress. Meteors
made of iron resist the stress better than those of stone. Even an iron meteor will usually
divides as the atmosphere becomes denser, around 5 to 7 miles up.

What Causes a Meteor Shower?

Meteor showers occur when the earth rotate around the Sun travels through debris
left over from the breakup of comets. Although the earth's revolving around the Sun is
almost circular, most comets move in orbits that are very elongated ellipses. Hence, some
comets have orbits that across or partially overlap the earth's path.
Since a comet's nucleus is made up of a mixture of icy materials and loosely
combined "dirt," when a comet is heated by passing close to the Sun, it more or less slowly
falls apart, producing the striking tail. The stony debris, consisting of mostly sand-size
fragments, continues in a elongated orbit around the Sun close to that of its parent comet.
Producing a visible shower of meteors, the earth intersects this orbit in its annual trip; it can
strike into this debris, which burns upon entry into the earth's atmosphere.
Meteor showers connected with particular comet orbits occur at about the same time
each year because it is at those points in the earth's orbit that the impacts, occur. However,
there are some parts of the comet's path are abundant in debris than others; the strength of
a meteor shower may change from one year to the next. Typically a meteor shower will be
powerful when the earth crosses the comet's path shortly after the parent comet has passed.

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Why do meteor showers occur about the same time every year?

When the Earth’s orbit crosses that of a selected comet, meteor showers occur and
people intersections occur at constant intervals. The Leonid meteors happen when the
planet intersects the orbit of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, and also the Perseid meteors
happen when the planet crosses the orbit of Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. it should be helpful to
give some thought to all those diagrams we saw within the science class of the scheme from
above the plane of the planets. The Earth's orbits were drawn in as an almost complete
circle while the comet orbit was often drawn in as a protracted elegant ellipse. If we expect
the atmospheric phenomenon occurs when the orbit of the planet crosses the cometary
orbit, we will notice that these showers wouldn't only happen at the identical time every year
but also that the time would be very short. Just think about it that it's very seldom for the orbit
of anybody in space to cross the orbit of the planet. There are hundreds and thousands of
known short-period comets and only some of meteor showers.

What I Have Learned

Activity 2: I know it! Answer briefly in your own idea what you have learned
from this topic “Occurrence of Meteor Shower”.

1. What is Meteor Shower?

___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________

2. How does meteor shower occur?

___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________

3. What happen during a meteor shower?

___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________

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 What I can do?

Activity 3 – Draw me a Meteor Shower!

Direction: Go outside your house and observe the night sky for a meteor showers.
Using your color materials draw it in your activity notebook. Write a brief
reflection of your drawings focusing on its beautiful scenery in the outer
space.

Summary
Brief periods of heightened meteor activity frequently occur regularly in an
exceedingly particular component of the sky at a selected time of year. They are normally
named after the constellation within which they seem to begin; thus the Perseids come out
to start within the constellation Perseus and also the Leonids within the constellation Leo. It
happens when the earth crosses through an area having a wider than usual concentration of
interplanetary particles, like fragments left by a disintegrating comet, at certain points in its
orbit. Although the meteors enter the Earth’s atmosphere on parallel trajectories, perspective
makes it shows as if they start from the identical point within the sky, stated because of the
radiant. A natural phenomenon could be a planetary event within which the form of meteors
is noticed to radiate from one point within the night sky. They are smaller than a grain of
sand, that the volume of them disintegrate and never strike the Earth’s surface. Intense or
unusual meteor showers are called meteor outbursts and meteor storms, which can produce
greater than 1,000 meteors an hour.

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 Assessment (Post-Test)

Direction: For each item, encircle the letter of the correct answer.

1. Meteor showers result from dust trails left by ______________.

A. The Moon B. Asteroid C. Comet D. Meteor

2. During a meteor shower, meteors appear move outward from a point in the
sky. What is this called?
A. The Zenith B. The Radiant C. The Origin D. The Star

3. What is the best time to observe a meteor shower?

A. Early evening B. Late evening C. Early morning D. Late morning

4. The Perseids meteor shower occurs during ____________________. A.

Mid-January B. Mid-June C. Mid-August D. Mid-July

5. What is the meteor shower seen in November that produces a 'meteor storm' every
33 years?
A. Perseids meteor shower C. Orionids meteor shower
B. Leonids meteor shower D. Lyrids meteor shower

6. Which of the following meteor showers can be observed in December?

A. Lyrids meteor shower C. Geminids meteor shower
B. Orionids meteor shower D. Perseids meteor shower

7. What is the name given to meteor that reaches the earth?

A. Meteorite B. Meteoroid C. Asteroid D. Comet

8. What is a 'fireball”?
A. A meteor brighter than any planet or star
B. A meteor that explodes in the atmosphere
C. A meteor that reaches the earth
D. None of the above

9. Which of the following statement is CORRECT about meteors?

A. Meteor showers do not occur on other planets
B. Tektite is a type of meteoroid
C. A 'bolide' is a very bright meteor
D. A large rock
10. The 'zenith hourly rate' (ZHR) is the number of meteors observed during an hour, _____.

A. Crossing the zenith C. When the observer is looking at the zenith B. When the
shower is at the zenith D. None of the above

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Key to Answers

7
References
Adapted from Science – Grade 8 Learner’s Material. Unit 2 Module 3, Activity 1:
What Happens when a comet or an asteroid hits Earth. First Edition 2013.Department of
Education-Instructional Materials Council Secretariat (DedEd-IMCHS) Pasay City. Page154-155

Adapted from Science – Grade 8 Learner’s Material Unit 2 Module 3, Activity 3:

Do Superstitions about comets, asteroids, and meteors have scientific basis?First Edition
2013 Department of Education-Instructional Materials Council Secretariat (DepEd-IMCHS)
Pasay City. Page 165-166

Adapted from Project EASE – First year Science Learner’s Module 17, Other Minor
Members of the Solar System.2010 Edition.Department of Education.Deped Complex,
Meralco Avenue, Pasig Avenue

Asteroids. Retrieved September 2, 2004 from http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov

Asteroids and Comets. Retrieved July 28, 2004 from http://www.uen.org/utahlink/activities

https://solarsystem.nasagov/planets/profile.cfm?objectmeteors Space Object Differences
from http://www.sciencekids.co.nz
www.rosssea.info/meteorites.html
www.scienceclarified.com/scitech/Comets-and-Asteroids/How-Asteroids-and-Comets.html
http://www.pibburns.com/catastro/meteors.htm
http://hubblesite.org/reference_desk/faq/answer.php.id=22&cat=solarsystem
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/segwayed/lessons/cometstale/frame_place.html
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-fscj-introastronomy/chapter/meteoroids-meteors-and-
meteorites/
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/meteors-and-
meteorites/overview/?page=0&per_page=40&order=id+asc&search=&condition_1=meteor_s
hower%3Abody_type
https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-between-a-solstice-and-an-equinox
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/meteoroid/
https://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/activities/findit/qmeteor.shtml
https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/5702f706f632dccf635b8188/astroids-meteors-and-comets
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/meteors-and-
meteorites/overview/?page=0&per_page=40&order=id+asc&search=&condition_1=meteor_s
hower%3Abody_type#resources_otp
https://www.space.com/15353-meteor-showers-facts-shooting-stars-skywatching-
sdcmp.html
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-causes-a-meteor-
show/#:~:text=Meteor%20showers%20occur%20when%20the,from%20the%20disintegratio
n%20of%20comets.&text=When%20the%20earth%20intersects%20this,a%20visible%20sh
ower%20of%20meteors.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/why-do-meteor-showers-occur-
about-the-same-time-every-year-and-other-questions-from-our-readers-101515683/
https://www.space.com/15353-meteor-showers-facts-shooting-stars-skywatching-
sdcmp.html

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