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Humans have always looked up at night and seen the stars lighting the sky. Folklore around stars, before our modern understanding of them as gigantic balls of gases, creating light energy via nuclear fusion,<ref>[https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-earthscience/chapter/nuclear-fusion/#:~:text=The%20Sun%20is%20Earth's%20major,all%20stars%20is%20nuclear%20fusion. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-earthscience/chapter/nuclear-fusion/#:~:text=The%20Sun%20is%20Earth's%20major,all%20stars%20is%20nuclear%20fusion.]</ref> has been creative and varied. | Humans have always looked up at night and seen the stars lighting the sky. Folklore around stars, before our modern understanding of them as gigantic balls of gases, creating light energy via nuclear fusion,<ref>[https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-earthscience/chapter/nuclear-fusion/#:~:text=The%20Sun%20is%20Earth's%20major,all%20stars%20is%20nuclear%20fusion. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-earthscience/chapter/nuclear-fusion/#:~:text=The%20Sun%20is%20Earth's%20major,all%20stars%20is%20nuclear%20fusion.]</ref> has been creative and varied. | ||
Due to their similar size and appearance, many ancient people have confused meteors, which are small rocky masses or grains of debris which burn up after entering the earth's atmosphere as stars streaking across the sky, which is why they were often called shooting stars (as we do in English) broken stars or falling stars. | Due to their similar size and appearance, many ancient people have confused meteors, which are small rocky masses or grains of debris which burn up after entering the earth's atmosphere as stars streaking across the sky, which is why they were often called shooting stars(as we do in English), broken stars or falling stars. | ||
On a typical night it means you might see just a few meteors an hour streaking randomly across the sky. These are called sporadic meteors. At certain times of the year these numbers can increase to around 100 meteors an hour in events called meteor showers, as Earth ploughs through denser streams of particles on its orbit around the Sun.<ref>https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/what-causes-meteor-shower</ref> | |||
== Ancient beliefs around stars and meteors pre-Islam == | == Ancient beliefs around stars and meteors pre-Islam == | ||
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And because of it these went up in fire. | And because of it these went up in fire. | ||
This happened utterly...}} | This happened utterly...}} | ||
A discussion linking this | A discussion linking this event to being a meteorite can be found [https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:27978/datastreams/CONTENT/content?download=true here]<ref>https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:27978/datastreams/CONTENT/content?download=true</ref> (“Then a Star Fell:” Folk-Memory of a Celestial Impact Event in the Ancient Egyptian Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor? Dr Lloyd D. Graham. 2022).<ref>https://www.academia.edu/35137388/_Then_a_Star_Fell_Folk_Memory_of_a_Celestial_Impact_Event_in_the_Ancient_Egyptian_Tale_of_the_Shipwrecked_Sailor</ref> And for a further discussion of a theoretically catastrophic impact in ancient Egypt, see ''Aly Barakat, ‘Did the Kamil Meteorite Fall Contribute to the Downfall of the Old Kingdom?’, The Ostracon: Journal of the Egyptian Study Society, XXIV (Fall 2013), pp. 12–21.''<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_T0MWfFWfo</ref> | ||
'''Biblical motifs''' | '''Biblical motifs''' | ||
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Though there is no direct stories of the functions of star in this way in the bible (or biblical literature), Dr Julien Decharneux notes in book exploring the connections between the cosmology of the Qur’ān and various cosmological traditions of Late Antiquity, with a focus on Syriac Christianity,<ref>[https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110794083/html?lang=en#:~:text=About%20this%20book,a%20focus%20on%20Syriac%20Christianity. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110794083/html?lang=en#:~:text=About%20this%20book,a%20focus%20on%20Syriac%20Christianity.]</ref> there are some general motifs that link to this imagery. However he notes it is much more likely rooted in Iranian mythology: (CHECK CONTRADICTIONS){{Quote|Decharneux, Julien. Creation and Contemplation: The Cosmology of the Qur'ān and Its Late Antique Background (Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East Book 47) (pp. 316-317). De Gruyter.|The image of fallen angels trying to approach the firmament in order to listen to the heavenly council is found in the Talmud. Crone in fact already notes the presence of the motif in the first-century Greek Testament of Solomon. Here however, demons are not chased by fiery missiles, but they themselves look like shooting stars after falling from the sky out of exhaustion. Although a systematic skimming of the sources would probably reveal the presence of the motif of stars chasing demons away from the heavenly council in patristic and Christian apocryphal literature, our sources show that it was still lively in the imagery of the 8th century in the Church of the East. Theodore bar Koni, in his Scolion, discusses the activity of demons: | Though there is no direct stories of the functions of star in this way in the bible (or biblical literature), Dr Julien Decharneux notes in book exploring the connections between the cosmology of the Qur’ān and various cosmological traditions of Late Antiquity, with a focus on Syriac Christianity,<ref>[https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110794083/html?lang=en#:~:text=About%20this%20book,a%20focus%20on%20Syriac%20Christianity. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110794083/html?lang=en#:~:text=About%20this%20book,a%20focus%20on%20Syriac%20Christianity.]</ref> there are some general motifs that link to this imagery. However he notes it is much more likely rooted in Iranian mythology: (CHECK CONTRADICTIONS){{Quote|Decharneux, Julien. Creation and Contemplation: The Cosmology of the Qur'ān and Its Late Antique Background (Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East Book 47) (pp. 316-317). De Gruyter.|The image of fallen angels trying to approach the firmament in order to listen to the heavenly council is found in the Talmud. Crone in fact already notes the presence of the motif in the first-century Greek Testament of Solomon. Here however, demons are not chased by fiery missiles, but they themselves look like shooting stars after falling from the sky out of exhaustion. Although a systematic skimming of the sources would probably reveal the presence of the motif of stars chasing demons away from the heavenly council in patristic and Christian apocryphal literature, our sources show that it was still lively in the imagery of the 8th century in the Church of the East. Theodore bar Koni, in his Scolion, discusses the activity of demons: | ||
<i>Can the demons ascend to the place on high anyway? They cannot because they are held back by the power of the one who destroyed them. It is not proper that defiled ones approach the Tent of the Saints […]. The fact that our Lord compared him to a lightning means two things: either that he lasted in his domination for the time of the sight of a lightning, or that when while he was shining as a lightning in glory, he was quenched at once and no traces of his splendour was left.</i> | <i>Can the demons ascend to the place on high anyway? They cannot because they are held back by the power of the one who destroyed them. It is not proper that defiled ones approach the Tent of the Saints […]. The fact that our Lord compared him to a lightning means two things: either that he lasted in his domination for the time of the sight of a lightning, or that when while he was shining as a lightning in glory, he was quenched at once and no traces of his splendour was left.</i> | ||
In fact, the motif of demons chased by flames finds particularly original renderings in the writings of Pseudo-Macarius and that of Syriac mystic authors studied in the second chapter. Building on the motif the inner divine fire that animates the mystic, they hold that it is the flames of this fire that chase away the demons from the heart. All in all, we see that Crone’s hypothesis of an eastern origin and development for the motif is quite likely. The image of fire and flames chasing demons away was not only widespread in Jewish circle as witnessed by the Babylonian Talmud, but it was also quite in use in the Church of the East tradition | In fact, the motif of demons chased by flames finds particularly original renderings in the writings of Pseudo-Macarius and that of Syriac mystic authors studied in the second chapter. Building on the motif the inner divine fire that animates the mystic, they hold that it is the flames of this fire that chase away the demons from the heart. All in all, we see that Crone’s hypothesis of an eastern origin and development for the motif is quite likely. The image of fire and flames chasing demons away was not only widespread in Jewish circle as witnessed by the Babylonian Talmud, but it was also quite in use in the Church of the East tradition.}}'''Weapons against demons:''' | ||
Many cultures had mythology surrounding meteors and meteorites, with some believing they were weapons, such as in ancient Africa and Mesopotamia:{{Quote|Golia, Maria, Meteorite: Nature and Culture (Earth), Reaktion Books, p. 72 | Many cultures had mythology surrounding meteors and meteorites, with some believing they were weapons, such as in ancient Africa and Mesopotamia:{{Quote|Golia, Maria, Meteorite: Nature and Culture (Earth), Reaktion Books, p. 72|'The indigenous San people of southern Africa also consider meteorites dangerous: ‘They can kill people, and at the times of the meteor showers when many are moving about and falling, the sky is very bad.’ Echoing themes from Mesopotamian and classical antiquity, the San god Koa xa, ‘lord of the animals’, used a meteorite to fight lions that attacked his son.'}} | ||
And this may have inspired their use much later in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism,] (which was a prominent religion in the Persian (Iranian) empire both before and during the time of the prophet Muhammad/beginning of Islam)), where we see the link between stars and meteors as weapons: | And this may have inspired their use much later in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism,] (which was a prominent religion in the Persian (Iranian) empire both before and during the time of the prophet Muhammad/beginning of Islam)), where we see the link between stars and meteors as weapons: | ||
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The Qur'an states that stars (kawakib ٱلْكَوَاكِبِ), lamps (masabih مَصَٰبِيحَ) and/or great stars/constellations (burūj بُرُوجًا) adorn the heavens and guard against devils (shayāṭīn شياطين). | The Qur'an states that stars (kawakib ٱلْكَوَاكِبِ), lamps (masabih مَصَٰبِيحَ) and/or great stars/constellations (burūj بُرُوجًا) adorn the heavens and guard against devils (shayāṭīn شياطين). | ||
The Qur'an further asserts that Allah has made them (the stars/lamps) | The Qur'an further asserts that Allah has made them (the stars/lamps) missiles to ward away devils (who are believed to be [[jinn]] in Islam), who attempt to listen in on heavenly meetings (known as the Exalted Assembly). The Quranic concept has a close parallel in an earlier Jewish development from Zoroastrian mythology. Such myths are best understood as pre-modern attempts to explain the common phenomenon of meteors streaking across the night sky. The relevant verses are below:{{Quote|{{Quran|37|6–10}}|Surely We have made the sky of this world appear enticing by means of the splendor of <b>the stars [al-kawākibi],</b> and (We have made them) a (means of) protection from every rebelling satan [wa-ḥifẓan min kulli shayṭānin māridan]. They do not listen to the exalted Assembly, but they are pelted from every side, driven off – for them (there is) a punishment forever – except for the one who snatches a word, and <b>then a piercing flame pursues him [fa-’atbaʿa-hu shihābun thāqibun]. </b>}}{{Quote|{{Quran|67|5}}|Surely We adorned <b>the lower heaven [al-samā’a l-dunyā] with lamps [bi-maṣābīḥa], and made them missiles for the satans [wa-jaʿalnā-hā rujūman li-l-shayāṭīni]</b> – and We have prepared for them the punishment of the blazing (Fire).}}{{Quote|{{Quran|15|16-18}}|<b>Certainly We have made constellations in the sky [laqad jaʿalnā fī l-samā’i burūjan],</b> and made it appear enticing for the onlookers, and protected it from every <b>accursed satan [shayṭānin rajīmin]</b> – except any who (may) steal in to overhear, <b>then a clear flame pursues him [fa-’atbaʿa-hu shihābun mubīnun].</b>}}{{Quote|{{Quran|72|8-9}}|And that we touched the sky and found it filled with <b>harsh guards [ḥarasan shadīdan] and piercing flames [wa-shuhuban].</b> And that we used to sit there on seats to listen (in), but whoever listens now finds a piercing flame lying in wait for him [yajidu la-hu shihāban raṣadan].}} | ||
The same Arabic words are used at the start of [https://quranx.com/67.5 Quran 67:5] as in [https://quranx.com/37.6 Quran 37:6] (زَيَّنَّا ٱلسَّمَآءَ ٱلدُّنْيَا), except that in [https://quranx.com/67.5 Quran 67:5] the word lamps is used instead of stars. The lamps that 'beautify the heaven' must refer to stars (and perhaps also the 5 visible planets), which are always there. | The same Arabic words are used at the start of [https://quranx.com/67.5 Quran 67:5] as in [https://quranx.com/37.6 Quran 37:6] (زَيَّنَّا ٱلسَّمَآءَ ٱلدُّنْيَا), except that in [https://quranx.com/67.5 Quran 67:5] the word lamps is used instead of stars. The lamps that 'beautify the heaven' must refer to stars (and perhaps also the 5 visible planets), which are always there. | ||
Stars and visible planets were often called the same thing ([https://corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp?q=kwkb#(82:2:2) kawakib ٱلْكَوَاكِبِ]) due to their similar appearance, with stars appearing 'fixed' and planets notably moving. This is confirmed by astrologists such as Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (Azophi) who around 964 wrote the astronomical [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Fixed_Stars book of fixed stars] كتاب صور الكواكب kitāb suwar ''al-kawākib''. | Stars and visible planets were often called the same thing ([https://corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp?q=kwkb#(82:2:2) kawakib ٱلْكَوَاكِبِ]) due to their similar appearance, with stars appearing 'fixed' and planets notably moving, usually differentiated by astronomers by labelling them respectively. This is confirmed by astrologists such as Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (Azophi) who around 964 wrote the astronomical [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Fixed_Stars book of fixed stars] كتاب صور الكواكب kitāb suwar ''al-kawākib''. | ||
{{Quran|67|5}} | As professor David Cook notes, '<nowiki/>''Eventually in Arabic, najm generally came to mean “a fixed star” while kawkab “a planetary body” but there are plenty of exceptions to this rule. Planets were believed to be moving stars.'''<ref>https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-007-7747-7_8525</ref> | ||
In {{Quran|67|5}}, the word translated "missiles" is rujūman (رُجُومًا), which are things that are thrown, especially stones.<ref>http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume3/00000214.pdf</ref> | |||
[https://corpus.quran.com/search.jsp?q=constellations Burūj بُرُوجًا] means great stars or constellations (or towers); Surah 85 (Al-Burūj) is called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Burooj The Great Star]. | [https://corpus.quran.com/search.jsp?q=constellations Burūj بُرُوجًا] means great stars or constellations (or towers); Surah 85 (Al-Burūj) is called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Burooj The Great Star]. | ||
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{{Quote|{{Ibn Majah||1|1|194}}|The Prophet said: "When Allah decrees a matter in heaven, the angels beat their wings in submission to his decree (with a sound) like a chain beating a rock. Then "When fear is banished from their hearts, they say: 'What is it that your Lord has said?' They say: 'The truth. And He is The Most High, The Most Great." He said: 'Then the eavesdroppers (from among the jinn) listen out for that, one above the other, so (one of them) hears the words and passes it on to the one beneath him. The Shihab (shooting star) may strike him before he can pass it on to the one beneath him and the latter can pass it on to the soothsayer or sorcerer, or it may not strike him until he has passed it on. And he ads one hundred lies to it, and only that word which was overheard from the heavens is true."}}And here in Jami' at-Tirmidhi, where we see the word (najm/نجم) is used to describe the shooting star: | {{Quote|{{Ibn Majah||1|1|194}}|The Prophet said: "When Allah decrees a matter in heaven, the angels beat their wings in submission to his decree (with a sound) like a chain beating a rock. Then "When fear is banished from their hearts, they say: 'What is it that your Lord has said?' They say: 'The truth. And He is The Most High, The Most Great." He said: 'Then the eavesdroppers (from among the jinn) listen out for that, one above the other, so (one of them) hears the words and passes it on to the one beneath him. The Shihab (shooting star) may strike him before he can pass it on to the one beneath him and the latter can pass it on to the soothsayer or sorcerer, or it may not strike him until he has passed it on. And he ads one hundred lies to it, and only that word which was overheard from the heavens is true."}}And here in Jami' at-Tirmidhi, where we see the word (najm/نجم) is used to describe the shooting star: | ||
{{Quote|{{Al Tirmidhi||5|44|3224}}|Narrated Ibn 'Abbas: | {{Quote|{{Al Tirmidhi||5|44|3224}}|Narrated Ibn 'Abbas: | ||
"We were with the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), while he was sitting with a group of his Companions, when they saw a glowing shooting star. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: 'When you saw the likes of this during Jahiliyyah, what would you say about it?' They said: 'We would say that a great man died, or that a great man has been born.' The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: 'It is not shot due to the death of anyone, nor his coming into life. Rather when our Lord [Blessed is His Name and Most High] decrees a matter, He is glorified by the bearers of the Throne. Then He is glorified by the inhabitants who are below them, then those below them, until such glorification reaches this Heaven. Then the inhabitants of the sixth Heaven ask the inhabitants of the seventh Heaven: "What did your Lord say?" He said: 'So they inform them; then the inhabitants of each Heaven seek the information, until the news is conveyed to the inhabitants of the Heavens of the earth. The Shayatin try to overhear so they are shot at, so they cast it down to their friends. Whatever they came with is true, as it is, but they distort it and add to it.'"}}Showing this reinforcing the incorrect idea of stars being shooting stars and gives us a fourth word for stars as confirmation | "We were with the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), while he was sitting with a group of his Companions, when they saw a glowing shooting star. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: 'When you saw the likes of this during Jahiliyyah, what would you say about it?' They said: 'We would say that a great man died, or that a great man has been born.' The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: 'It is not shot due to the death of anyone, nor his coming into life. Rather when our Lord [Blessed is His Name and Most High] decrees a matter, He is glorified by the bearers of the Throne. Then He is glorified by the inhabitants who are below them, then those below them, until such glorification reaches this Heaven. Then the inhabitants of the sixth Heaven ask the inhabitants of the seventh Heaven: "What did your Lord say?" He said: 'So they inform them; then the inhabitants of each Heaven seek the information, until the news is conveyed to the inhabitants of the Heavens of the earth. The Shayatin try to overhear so they are shot at, so they cast it down to their friends. Whatever they came with is true, as it is, but they distort it and add to it.'"}}Showing this reinforcing the incorrect idea of stars being shooting stars and gives us a fourth word for stars as confirmation. | ||
'''Muslim Historians''' | '''Muslim Historians''' | ||
Meteor showers were of unknown cause to 7th Century Arabs, as the later (than the Quran's writing) historian and geographer [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ya%27qubi Al-Ya'qubi] reports several meteor showers that happened just before and during Muhammad's lifetime (In 571 AD and 609 AD), attributing them to shooting stars | Meteor showers were of unknown cause to 7th Century Arabs, as the later (than the Quran's writing) historian and geographer [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ya%27qubi Al-Ya'qubi] reports several meteor showers that happened just before and during Muhammad's lifetime (In 571 AD and 609 AD), attributing them to shooting stars/planets striking devils<ref name=":0">https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1992QJRAS..33....5R&db_key=AST&page_ind=6&plate_select=NO&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_GIF&classic=YES</ref>, with the multitude of them potentially leading to the idea they are 'pelted from every side'. Further Muslim historians such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_%27Idhari Ibn 'Idhari] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Jawzi Ibn al-Jawzi] confirm this understanding, with a summary of their assessment of meteor showers held in this Royal Astronomical Society [https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1992QJRAS..33....5R&db_key=AST&page_ind=6&plate_select=NO&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_GIF&classic=YES publication]. | ||
=== | === Versus modern science === | ||
As mentioned in the introduction, while stars are giant balls of gas thousands of times larger than the earth, meteors are now known to be distinct from the distant stars, being small rocky masses or grains of debris which burn up after entering the earth's atmosphere. They are often not much larger than grains of sand and only become visible for a second when they burn up, generating light in the Earth's atmosphere. Many ancient people confused the two, as meteors look like stars that are streaking across the sky; this is why they were often called shooting stars or falling stars. | As mentioned in the introduction, while stars are giant balls of gas thousands of times larger than the earth, meteors are now known to be distinct from the distant stars, being small rocky masses or grains of debris which burn up after entering the earth's atmosphere. They are often not much larger than grains of sand and only become visible for a second when they burn up, generating light in the Earth's atmosphere. Many ancient people confused the two, as meteors look like stars that are streaking across the sky; this is why they were often called shooting stars or falling stars. | ||
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Stars are an average 5 light years away from each other in our galaxy.<ref>https://public.nrao.edu/ask/what-is-the-average-distance-between-stars-in-our-galaxy/</ref> For context, a light year is the distance light travels in one year, which is 5.88 trillion miles/9.46 trillion kilometres.<ref>https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/faq/26/what-is-a-light-year/</ref> This again makes them an odd choice for a protection/guard, with trillions of miles/kilometers of mostly empty space between them. | Stars are an average 5 light years away from each other in our galaxy.<ref>https://public.nrao.edu/ask/what-is-the-average-distance-between-stars-in-our-galaxy/</ref> For context, a light year is the distance light travels in one year, which is 5.88 trillion miles/9.46 trillion kilometres.<ref>https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/faq/26/what-is-a-light-year/</ref> This again makes them an odd choice for a protection/guard, with trillions of miles/kilometers of mostly empty space between them. | ||
The results of many stellar size measurements over the years have shown that most nearby stars are roughly the size of the Sun, with typical diameters of a million kilometers or so.<ref>[https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-astronomy/chapter/diameters-of-stars/#:~:text=The%20results%20of%20many%20stellar,a%20million%20kilometers%20or%20so. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-astronomy/chapter/diameters-of-stars/#:~:text=The%20results%20of%20many%20stellar,a%20million%20kilometers%20or%20so.]</ref> This of course makes them absurdly large to be used as an object to be thrown by angels at jinn, both of which are approximately human size and visit Earth. | The results of many stellar size measurements over the years have shown that most nearby stars are roughly the size of the Sun, with typical diameters of a million kilometers or so.<ref>[https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-astronomy/chapter/diameters-of-stars/#:~:text=The%20results%20of%20many%20stellar,a%20million%20kilometers%20or%20so. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-astronomy/chapter/diameters-of-stars/#:~:text=The%20results%20of%20many%20stellar,a%20million%20kilometers%20or%20so.]</ref> An example of a calculation to demonstrate the size of this, is the sun can fit around 22 billion billion billion (10^28) people in, with the full workings found in this Quora [https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-can-fit-in-the-sun answer] as an estimate. This of course makes them absurdly large to be used as an object to be thrown by angels at jinn, both of which are approximately human size and visit Earth. | ||
Meteors are caused by asteroids and comet 'dust' (see final section for full explanation) not stars. | Meteors are caused by asteroids and comet 'dust' (see final section 'Further science and the argument of meteors' for full explanation of this topic) not stars. | ||
Meteor | Meteor showers look like stars 'pelting' from every side. Meteor showers were of unknown cause to 7th Century Arabs, as the later (than the Quran's writing) historian and geographer [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ya%27qubi Al-Ya'qubi] reports several meteor showers that happened just before and during Muhammad's lifetime (In 571 AD and 609 AD), attributing them to shooting stars (and planets) striking devils<ref name=":0" />, with the multitude of them potentially leading to the idea they are 'pelted from every side'. Further Muslim historians such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_%27Idhari Ibn 'Idhari] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Jawzi Ibn al-Jawzi] confirm this understanding, with a summary of their assessment of meteor showers held in this Royal Astronomical Society [https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1992QJRAS..33....5R&db_key=AST&page_ind=6&plate_select=NO&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_GIF&classic=YES publication]. | ||
However, these verses would of course fit a relatively small universe as imagined by 7th century Arabs, in which a heavenly firmament is adorned with stars able to pelt shooting stars at any devils or jinn in their vicinity, seeming to cover interstellar distances in a flaming streak across the sky. | However, these verses would of course fit a relatively small universe as imagined by 7th century Arabs, in which a heavenly firmament is adorned with stars able to pelt shooting stars at any devils or jinn in their vicinity, seeming to cover interstellar distances in a flaming streak across the sky. | ||
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'''Actual cause - Meteor Showers''' | '''Actual cause - Meteor Showers''' | ||
As meteor shower occurs when the Earth passes through the trail of debris left by a comet or asteroid.<ref>https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/741990main_ten_meteor_facts.pdf</ref> It is extremely rare for them to cause I meteor directly, but right theory meteorites could come from meteors from them directly from the few 'near' Earth (it's extremely rare for one to come within 0.1AU < | As meteor shower occurs when the Earth passes through the trail of debris left by a comet or asteroid.<ref>https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/741990main_ten_meteor_facts.pdf</ref> It is extremely rare for them to cause I meteor directly, but right theory meteorites could come from meteors from them directly from the few 'near' Earth (it's extremely rare for one to come within 0.1AU of Earth),<ref>ttps://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/7721/how-near-to-earth-do-comets-pass#:~:text=It%20is%20rare%20for%20a,with%200.1%20AU%20of%20Earth.</ref> but none (meteorites) have been traced indefinitely. | ||
Comets main meteors are caused by the earth rotating through the dust left behind | Comets main meteors are caused by the earth rotating through the dust left behind | ||