What did the name 'shooting star' come from?

Answer 1

Whoever looked into the sky first. "Shooting Stars" are just pieces of rock that enter our atmosphere and burn up producing light and this has been happening for millions, if not billion/s of years.

Answer 2

The older term was "falling star". The lights in the sky are stars, right? Sometimes a star-like light will burst into view and appear to fall to the ground, or "shoot" across the sky.

Hence, "shooting" stars, or "falling" stars. We only learned much later that "shooting stars" aren't star-like at all, but are merely flecks of space dust heated to incandescence by the friction of their passage through the high thin air.

Answer 3

because they float fast in the sky and are barely able to be seen

Answer 4

"Shooting stars", or meteors, have been raining down from the skies since the Earth was formed. Several thousand fall every night. Anyone who ever looked up at night was bound to see them.

Answer 5

They look like they may be stars, but they streak

across part of the sky in a few seconds.