Meteor Shower
A Meteor Shower:
What Is It?
You won't need a
telescope, binoculars, or a tall mountain to have a "star gazing"
party if a meteor shower is a forecast. A warm sleeping bag and an alarm clock to
wake you up in the middle of the night can be necessary. The best place to
watch a show, though, is simply by lying down in your own backyard.
Meteors
A meteoroid is
a space rock that enters the atmosphere of Earth. The air on the space rock
creates drag, which causes it to heat up as it falls toward Earth. A
"shooting star" is what we can see. The glowing hot air that can be
seen as the hot rock flies through the atmosphere, not the rock itself, is what
is causing that light streak.
We refer to a meteor
shower as the simultaneous collision of several meteoroids with Earth.
Why
would there be a lot of meteoroids hitting Earth at once? Comets orbit the sun
in a similar manner to Earth and the other planets. The orbits of comets are
typically very lopsided, in contrast to the relatively circular orbits of
planets.
A
comet releases a lot of dust and rock particles as a portion of its frozen
surface melts off as it approaches the sun. As the sun's heat boils off more
and more ice and debris, it spreads out throughout the comet's course,
especially in the inner solar system (where humans reside). Then, several times
per year, when Earth orbits the sun, its orbit intersects that of a comet,
causing Earth to collide with cometary debris.
But not to worry!
The meteoroids are usually small, from dust particles to boulder size.
They are almost always small enough to quickly burn up in our atmosphere, so
there's little chance any of them will strike Earth's surface. But there is a
good chance that you can see a beautiful shooting However, don't worry!
Typically, meteoroids range in size from dust
particles to boulders. There is very little possibility that any of them will
impact the surface of Earth because they are almost always small enough to burn
up fast in our atmosphere. However, there's a decent possibility you'll catch a
stunning shooting star display in the middle of the night!
starry center of the night sky!
A meteor shower's bright
streaks can appear anywhere in the sky, yet their "tails" always seem
to circle back to the same area. This is due to perspective, which makes meteors
appear to be farther apart as they get closer to Earth even though they are all
traveling in the same direction toward us. Observing two railroad tracks
coming together from the middle of the tracks is analogous to that.
The constellation
from which the meteors appear to be coming is used to identify meteor showers.
So, for instance, the annual Orionid Meteor Shower in October seems to have its
origins close to the constellation Orion the Hunter.
Think ahead.
These are the major meteor
showers' dates. Peak viewing periods will change annually by one or two days.
Keep in mind that you might not see many meteors if the moon is full or almost
full. In terms of meteors per hour, certain years are better than others.
|
Quadrantids |
December/January
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