You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Ugh, I love that sound.

That's the sound of wishing on shooting stars and animal crossing, which I played a lot

of at the beginning of the pandemic.

But sadly Emily, putting on my scientist and residence hat, the star falling sound, it's

not super accurate.

It's a video game.

Does it need to be accurate?

I'm just saying in the game, you're picking up pieces of gaseous star from the beach.

True.

And I don't know about you, but I've never seen chunks of star just lying around.

Well, that's because you are a real scientist, Regina Barber.

I imagine when you were a kid and gazed into the night sky, you asked technical things

of the cosmos.

Like, what are you made of chemically?

I mean, you're not wrong, Emily.

I wanted to know what a meteor was.

You know, I didn't take it at face value as a little kid that they were actually stars

falling from the sky.

And the truth of what they are is much cooler.

So today Shortwave asks the question, Twinkle Twinkle Little Shooting Star.

Tell us what you actually are.

...