Every mid-November, Earth passes through a region of outer space littered with bits of cosmic debris that habitually light up like matches in the night sky. The leftover remnants of a comet, called 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, manifest as a stream of space dust, rock, and frozen gas trailing throughout the solar system. Their striking the Earth’s atmosphere results…

Look to the north in the evening sky on October 8 and 9, and you might glimpse several slivers of light shooting across the night sky, emanating from the constellation Draco. Around this time each year, Earth passes through a region of space strewn with cosmic debris, chucks of ice and rock, which upon entering…