Patty Graham, age 12, of Williamspor , PA, for her question:

A comet may be seen for weeks and the so‑called shooting star lasts only a moment. The comet, maybe big as a city, orbits the sun and returns at regular intervals. The so‑called shooting star is actually a meteor, a space drifter, maybe no bigger than a grain of sand. We see it only when it collides with the earth and burns in the atmosphere.

Some meteors are related to comets. There are meteor swarms when the earth crosses the paths of certain comets. These meteors may be dusty fragments from comets that visited our skies long ago.