August Showers

If you missed the Perseid meteor shower on the 12^th of this month, there will be another chance to see a grand display of “falling stars” coming up.

There’s a trick to watching a meteor shower. Meteors flash across the sky rapidly, so it’s helpful to know from which direction they originate. In astronomy, that’s called the radiant. For the Perseids, the radiant is the constellation Perseus.  Although  the meteors seem to be all over the sky, the Perseids do come in from the north-east quadrant of sky. November’s upcoming Leonids will originate in the constellation Leo.

What is a meteor?

Meteors are remnants of comets that pass close enough to the big blue marble of the world to be captured by earth’s gravitation. As cometary debris passes through our atmosphere, the meteor burns up in a flash of light. Sand or boulder sized chunks of comets come from space, pass through our atmosphere, and fall to the ground. These three states are given different names. Space junk is called a meteoroid. When it passes through the atmosphere it is called a meteor. Any chunk that makes it to the ground is called a meteorite. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid

The Perseids are remnants of comet Swift-Tuttle. The Leonids are remnants of comet Temple-Tuttle. The names, of course, come from the men who discovered the comets.

http://www.oarval.org/section3_16.htm

Since the Perseids are gone, because the earth has already passed through the stream of Swift-Tuttle’s orbit, make sure you don’t miss the remnant of Temple-Tuttle, the Leonids in mid-November. http://cometography.com/pcomets/055p.html

How should you watch meteor showers? 

1.  Face into the radiant. Relax . . .lay on your back and watch the show. 

2.   Catch them when they peak. Most astronomical websites will inform you when the shower will peak. That could be in the middle of the night. 

3.    Best viewing happens after midnight. That’s when the earth rotates to face the shower. Earlier viewing means the meteors have to catch up to earth.

http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/earthskys-meteor-shower-guide

As you can see from this website, there are other meteor showers on the horizon, though they may not be as spectacular as the bolide producing Perseids or the Leonids. Other radiants include Draco, Orion, Taurus, and Gemini.

Did you say bolide?

bo·lide (bld, -ld) n. A meteoric fireball. [French, from Latin bolis, bolid-, kind of meteor, from Greek, missile, flash (of lightning), from ballein, to throw; see gwel- in Indo-European roots.] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 

bolide [ˈbəʊlaɪd -lɪd] n (Astronomy) a large exceptionally bright meteor that often explodes Also called fireball [from French, from bolis missile; see ballista] Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003