Prior to the 12 century - when the English language was already 400
years old - the female pronoun was "heo" ("hye", or "hie" in Middle
English). "Heo" was also was the plural of all genders. "She" as a
noun (she-cousin) was not in acceptable use prior to the 14th century.
Even today, the plurals of all genders in English have no feminine
forms, as opposed, for instance, to Semitic languages. "We" and "they"
in english are unisex. In Hebrew, for example, "hem" is the male
plural and "hen" the female plural.
"He" derives from the Indo-European word for "this (here)". Hence
here, her, and ... hence.
http://www.geocities.com/etymonline/s5etym.htm
Shooting Stars
The average meteor - a piece of a steroid or planet, or dust left by
passing comets - is the size of a baseball and is moving through space
at 50,000 kilometers per hours. Hence the myth that meteors burn upon
entry due to friction with the Earth's atmosphere. The truth is that
meteors do not burn - they vaporize due to "ram pressure".
Meteors do heat - to more than 3000 degrees Fahrenheit or 1649 Celsius
- and, as a result, they glow.
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