Meteor Shower
From Slackerpedia Galactica
Meteor showers are brilliant displays of multiple objects burning up as they enter Earth's atmosphere. If one were to take a shower in a meteor shower, they would end up dirty because the meteors are dust and debris from comets and other objects.
Meteors, also known as Shooting Stars, occur when small pieces of space debris burn up in the atmosphere leaving a bright trail of light. Meteors that hit the ground are called Meteorites.
Recurring showers that occur year after year are named for their radiant Constellation. During a shower, if you draw imaginary lines back along the trails, most of them will seem to come from a particular point in the sky. That's the radiant. The two most well known meteor showers are the Leonids and the Perseids which peak every year when the Earth passes through the tails of two comets.
Many of these showers occur as Earth (or the observer's current celestial body with atmosphere) encounters the debris stream of periodic Comets. However, some are associated with Asteroids or have unknown (or tentative) sources.
Meteors Via Radio
You can listen to meteor showers in VLF bands. Tune into a TV or radio station in a city just a little too far away to normally hear. (For example, in Boston tune into channel 3 TV in Hartford). During a meteor shower their signal will bounce off the ion trail of the meteor and sound like a sonar ping on your TV or radio. During meteor showers, you can often hear many per minute. Amateur radio operators often hold contests to bounce transmissions off the ion trails and communicate with stations normally too distant. This is called meteor scatter.
| Shower Name / Radiant | Approximate Peak Date | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Quadrantids | January 3 | |
| Eta Aquarids | May 6 | Comet 1P/Halley |
| Perseids | August 12-13 | Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle |
| Orionids | October 21 | Comet 1P/Halley |
| Leonids | November 17-19 | Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle |
| Geminids | December 14 | Asteroid 3200 Phaeton |
External Links
Meteor Shower at Wikipedia
American Meteor Society
Meteor Showers Online
Slacker Astronomy audio podcast - an audio sound seeing tour of the 2005 Perseid meteor shower
Slacker Astronomy audio podcast about meteor showers
Geminids overhead multi-night photo of Geminid meteor shower
