Every day the earth is bombarded from space with millions of pieces of sand, dust and specks of rocks. When these pieces of debris hit our atmosphere at speeds in excess of 50 km/second they burn up and can be seen as spectacular streaks across the night sky. These are shooting stars and are visible every night if the sky is clear. However, there are certain times of the year when the Earth passes through a cloud of dust and debris and creates many more shooting stars.