Got it in... two
While there are a few fast moving stars, probably thrown out of 'place' by a sister star in their binary system going nova, what people call 'Shooting Stars' are the visible path of a meteoroid as it enters the atmosphere to become a meteor, and if it's large enough to land it becomes a meteorite
We can see a few with the naked eye, the main one being Andromeda, or M31. But like most things in the night sky it does just appear as another point of light. In fact, we can theoretically see anything with an apparent magnitude of six or below, but it really depends on conditions with regards to the atmosphere, light pollution, etc.
Well, we'll see
Not necessarily (or at all really)
There are several proposed means of "practical" interstellar travel within a human lifetime, using current or viable technology. To undertake today they would require a massive, coordinated, unified effort on behalf of all humanity however which, while a nice ideal, isn't very practical. As technology progresses we will inevitably discover more efficient propulsion techniques and other advancements that will lead to it one day becoming a reality (if we don't all kill ourselves before then
)
Read:
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-daedalus-starship/
http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet
Astronomy and Philosophy do go hand in hand. You can't spend hours gazing into the stars without coming to a few realizations about yourself. I don't believe in a god, and i love the idea that we don't, nor can we ever, know even a tiny fraction of 'everything'. I believe that the future lies with us, in humanity. We have so much potential, and yet we are achieving so little. We are approaching a fork in the road, a choice between greed and suffering or compassion and beauty.
This won't make much sense without knowing about
this
And if you want (more on their channel):
