Why meteors are more often seen late at night and usually numerous before dawn?

Answer 1

You know how when you look at the windshield of the car, there are bug splats on it? But there are never bug splats on the BACK window of the car. That's because the car is moving a lot faster than the bugs are, and the car runs into them.

It's sort of like that. The line of sunrise is the "front" end of the Earth, while the line of sunset is the back. As the Earth spins, the area that is seeing the dawn turns into morning, and then into noon, and then into evening, and finally sunset. Then that spot on the Earth turns around through the night until it's dawn, at the "front" end.

Space rocks are more likely to hit the "front" end of the Earth than the back end. In this case, the space rocks themselves sometimes are moving faster than the Earth does (the Earth is moving about 67,000 miles per hour in its orbit) and so sometimes you will see a meteor in the evening - but they are much more common in the pre-dawn hours in the front, than during the after-sunset hours in the back.

Answer 2

The Earth is moving around the Sun, at about 67,000 miles per hour. The "leading edge" of the Earth gets more meteor strikes than the "trailing side", because the Earth is going that way. Just like you often get bugs on your windshield but hardly ever get bugs on your rear window, because YOU hit the BUGS, rather than the bugs hitting YOU.

So the "front side" of the Earth gets more meteors than the back side. The part of the Earth going forward is the part between midnight and noon. Half of the front side is dark, while the other half is in sunlight. It's easier to see meteors in the dark than in the daytime.

So the dark part of the front side is the area between midnight and sunrise.

Answer 3

There are likely to be more of them falling into the atmosphere and burning up

after local midnight.

Before midnight, you're on the back side of the earth as it glides along its orbit,

so a meteorite has to catch up to earth in order to fall into the atmosphere.

After midnight, you're on the front side of the earth as it glides along its orbit,

so the earth is catching up to some slow-moving meteorites and grabbing them.

Answer 4

Meteors are more often seen late at night and before dawn because that is when the Earth is rotating into the direction of its orbit around the Sun, increasing the chances of encountering debris. Also, during those times, the sky is typically darker and clearer, making meteors more visible against the backdrop of the night sky.

Answer 5

Because after midnight the observer is on the leading face of the earth as it goes through its orbit.