There are a lot of meteoroids circling around in space. Ian Webster visualized all of the major ones at once.
Meteor showers on Earth are caused by streams of meteoroids hitting our atmosphere. These meteoroids are sand- and pebble-sized bits of rock that were once released from their parent comet. Some comets are no longer active and are now called asteroids.
This visualization shows these meteoroid streams orbiting the Sun, some stretching to the outer regions of the solar system.
Pan and zoom, filter by time, select specific showers, and watch from multiple vantage points. Nice. (It was sluggish in Safari but was smooth in Chrome.)
See also Webster’s Asterank.
