[ad_1]
As the Earth revolves around the sun all year, it passes through streams of cosmic debris. Conclusion meteor shower it can light up the night sky from dusk to dawn and if you’re lucky you can take a peek for a moment.
The next shower you can see is the Perseids. They are active from July 17 to August 24, reaching their peak of activity by Wednesday night or Thursday morning, August 11-12.
The Perseids light up the night sky as Earth slams into chunks of cosmic debris left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle. The dirty snowball is 17 miles wide and takes about 133 years to orbit the sun. His last trip was in 1992.
As many as 160 to 200 meteors are dazzling soilDuring the peak of the screen every hour’ atmosphere. They zoom through the atmosphere at about 133,000 miles per hour and explode at about 60 miles overhead. The moon is not very full at this time, which can provide a good view as the shower is most active in the hours before dawn. According to the International Meteor Organization.
[Sign up to get reminders for space and astronomy events on your calendar.]
Where do meteor showers come from?
If one meteor showerwhat you usually see are the remnants of an icy comet hitting Earth’s atmosphere. Comets are kind of like dirty snowballs: As they travel through the solar system, they leave behind a dusty trail of rock and ice that stays in space long after they leave. When Earth passes through these comet debris, pieces of debris, which can be as small as grains of sand, pierce the sky so fast that they explode and create a celestial fireworks display.
with a general rule meteor shower: You never watch the Earth pass from the last orbit of a comet to the remnants. Instead, the lit bits come from previous passes. So for the Perseid meteor shower, you’re seeing meteors launched not from its most recent pass in 1992, but from its main comet, Comet Swift-Tuttle, which was visited in 1862 or earlier.
This is because it takes time for debris from a comet’s orbit to drift into a position where it intersects Earth’s orbit. Bill Cooke, an astronomer with NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office.
how to watch
The best way to see a meteor shower is to go to a place where you can clearly see the entire night sky. Ideally, this would be a place with dark skies, away from city lights and traffic. To maximize your chances of catching the show, look for a location that offers a wide, unobstructed view.
Meteor showers can be seen for a certain period of time, but within a certain number of days they really peak from dusk to dawn. Those are the days when Earth’s orbit passes through the thickest part of the cosmic stream. Meteor showers can vary in their peak times, with some reaching their maximum for just a few hours and some for a few nights.
[ad_2]
Source link