These residues descend slowly through the atmosphere and may be carried for great distances. Afterwards, they may be found scattered so widely and uniformly on the ground that their presence in any given locality cannot be accounted for by the fall of any specific meteorite. This is a fact that, for example, one school of modern Russian meteoriticists overlooked when they were dealing with tiny granules of meteoritic dust that had been recently found at Podkamennaya Tunguska. These scientists tried to identify the tiny granules with the meteorite that had fallen there, June 30, 1908. But the members of the latest (1958) Russian expedition to that region about the impact point of 1908 clearly recognize the widespread character of meteoritic dust. So they reject the theory that such dust found in the Podkamennaya Tunguska area is specifically connected with the meteorite that fell there a half century ago. If sizable chunks of meteoritic material enter the atmosphere, they may produce exceptionally large and brilliant meteors. A spectacular meteor is generally known as a “fireball” if it is as bright as Venus or Jupiter. It receives the French term _bolide_ if, in addition to showing great brilliance, its flight is accompanied by detonations like the alarming sounds heard at the time of the Ussuri and Norton meteorite falls. [Illustration: COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO PRESS A bright Giacobinid meteor, photographed from a B-29 during the shower of October 9, 1946. See p. 115.] The term “shooting star,” which is often applied to meteors, in newspapers and magazine articles, is a misnomer. A meteor is _not_ a distant sun (that is, a star) in rapid motion, for the whole path of the meteor lies close at hand within a restricted zone of the earth’s atmosphere. The word “meteor” comes from the Greek word _meteōra_, which once applied to any natural occurrence _in the atmosphere_—for example, rainbows, halos, auroras, and so forth. Nowadays, the word “meteor” is used in a much more specialized sense than it was by the ancient Greeks. We have a specialized word, _meteoritics_, for the study of meteors and meteorites. No one should confuse meteoritics with _meteorology_, which is the science of things _other_ than meteors and meteorites, in the atmosphere—for example, clouds, storms, air currents. The region in which meteoric phenomena take place was long the subject of controversy. Some persons felt that meteors were nearby, like lightning. Others said that they moved at the distances of the remote fixed stars. This controversy on the whereabouts of meteors became heated, although it could have been settled quickly by a simple experiment you can try out for yourself.