Orionids Meteor Shower

I posted up some stuff about last year's Orionid meteor showers here and here.

The Orionid meteor shower comes from the Earth passing through the dust trail of quite possibly the most famous comet of all time, Haley's Comet. Pieces of debris, like ice, dust, or rock, enter Earth's atmosphere and become superheated causing a bright flash and streak as the material completely burns up. The larger and/or denser the material that enters the atmosphere, the longer the streak lasts before vanishing.

A meteor shower's radiant is the point at which all the meteors appear to originate from. For the Orionids, it is the left shoulder of Orion.

Grab a chair, find a dark spot, and hopefully see some good meteors. Unfortunately, a bright moon will be up from dusk to dawn, drowning out much of the Orionids. Don't let that dissuade you, there's still bound to be a few screamin' meteors that'll make it worth the wait.

Geminid Meteor Shower

The Geminid meteor shower is set to peak on Friday, December 14th. The Geminid meteor shower occurs when the Earth passes through a debris cloud left by near-earth object (NEO) 3200 Phaethon, which, interestingly is not a comet, but an asteroid, some theorists think.

Asteroids don't normally spew debris into space. The tail of a comet leaves debris sometimes as small as a grain of sand that when they come into contact with Earth's atmosphere become a bright flash of light streaking across the sky: a meteor. So where in the world does the debris that forms the Geminids come from?

Some think that the asteroid collided with another NEO that creates a cloud of dust and debris that follows it around in its orbit. Some think that it is actually an extinct comet. The comet's orbit is highly elliptical, like a comets. It comes extremely close to the Sun, twice as close as Mercury, where repeated blasts of solar energy could have reduced it to the rocky comet core we see today.

True to astronomical acronym fashion, this NEO is also classified as a PHA, or Potentially Hazardous Asteroid, because it comes a mere 2 million miles away from Earth's orbit. The size of this asteroid is 5 km wide; half the size of the asteroid assumed to have made the dinosaurs extinct.

3200 Phaethon is visible with a telescope in the constellation Virgo, where it will be 11 million miles away from Earth on December 10th. It appears as a magnitude 14 object not visible to the naked eye.

The meteor showers radiant is just "above" the star Castor, depending on what angle you are observing from.

A pretty sweet animation of the radiant and estimate of the meteors can be found on the incredibly cool Shadow & Substance website. This place has tons of cool fluid animations that can be used to illustrate tons of different things, so I encourage you to check it out.

Prepare for the Orionids! (Meteor Shower; October 21st!)

I know I set a reminder earlier this week, but I can't resist. The Orionids are occuring in less than five hours. A few fun facts for you stargazers:

1. The radiant is above Orion's top-left shoulder (Betelgeuse). The radiant is the apparent origin point of all meteors.


2. The meteor showers are actually formed because of Earth's annual movement through the debris trail left behind by Haley's Comet.


3. The 2007 Orionids are estimated to be double the standard per hour rate.


4. Be out around 1am to 2am to get the best seats in the house! (The gibbous moon will be gone and the radiant will be easily visible)

Enjoy, be safe, and have fun!

Orionid Meteor Shower (Sunday 10/21)

The Orionid Meteor shower will peak early Sunday morning and the meteors should be visible anywhere from 1:30am until sunrise.

The radiant of the meteor shower appears above and to the left of Betelgeuse, the massive red giant that marks Orion's upper left (from your perspective) shoulder blade.

The Orionids are an annual occurance that happens when the Earth travels through the debris trail of Haley's Comet.

Predictions for this year are looking quite optimistic and promising. We can expect the Orionid rate to be about twice the normal rate of twenty meteors per hours, according to the preliminary predictions of Sato and Watanabe of the Japanese Astronomical Observatory.