I think a lot of the confusion has to do with what people of the time would consider to be a star. I'm guessing if large amounts of asteroids or comets were to crash to earth, 1st century people would consider them stars.
Further, 'star' is just the English word chosed to represent the word originally used in the source language. Maybe it was the closest fit, but not precise. So, from this perspective it could happen. Really, it appears the only thing that couldn't happen is someone with an anti-biblical bias actually looking at a bible verse with an open mind rather than scepticism.