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Geminid Meteor Shower
Target Practice writes "Is it an asteroid? Is it a comet? Who cares? According to Sky and Telescope's website, 3200 Phaethon has been spewing chunks into our atmosphere for the past 150 years, and tonight, after the lan party, you can step outside at two or three A.M. and see the best light show yet - topping off at 75 meteors per hour! Be there..." Space.com has another story.
I'm no astronomer, but isnt it interesting in the least that the orbit is so close to earths with such a similiar length in orbit? Should not the trajectory/composition/dating be studied for maybe relevance in say, the formation of the moon or other interesting local phenomena?
pm
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
One thing better than the Leonids last month: The moon will be only 70% full tonight, and it'll set earlier.
The bad thing is, it's not as spectacular a show as the Leonids, all things being equal.
I remember when the orange streetlamps started to be installed in the 70's. Before that, all streetlamps were of the bluish variety and gave very little light pollution. I have no idea why they all use orange ones now, I guess they are cheaper? I think the orange ones are called "sodium vapor."
I wish we could go back to blue, or at least redesign the orange ones so that they don't shine so much light into the sky. I remember as a kid looking up and seeing the milky way. Now I'm lucky if I manage to see Jupiter through the orange haze.
Three or four years ago, the head of the planetarium and observatory in Bradenton, FL was arrested while shooting out streetlamps near the observatory with a shotgun. I totally understand that guy. He was just fed up.
Conventional meteor showers come from comets, ice, and rock and material from them is jerked off when they approach the sun, creating those large tails trailing the objects and leaving clouds of gas and dust.
When the Earth plows through such debris patches, minuscule comet fragments burn up in the atmosphere and light up the nighttime sky.
An article I read on Netscape.com said, however, that "the Geminids are linked to 3200 Phaethon, an inner solar system object that lacks many qualities of comets in the neighborhood."
"3200 Phaethon doesn't sprout a tail when it comes close to the sun. It doesn't have a halo or a coma," is a quote from a NASA bulletin on these latest showers.
One other thing that people don't realize, though, is that weather does prohibit good viewing sometimes. It's winter in North America and many of us get snow or hail on an almost daily basis in December and January.
Maybe we could all post pictures of this as the event comes closer to starting. I'll probably have my brother in law out in Phoenix point the Web cam out the window to see if I can't catch a glimpse of some of this latest Geminid shower.
The Geminids are the workhorse of meteor showers. They appear year after year, not spectacular, but guaranteed. The Earth passes through a large cloud of debris, and meteors are visible each night for over a week. The density of the meteoroids left over by the astreoid is greater than the cometary debris of usual meteor showers. Therefore, the meteors are very bright and sometimes very colourful. Go see them and enjoy.
Veni, vidi, vici.
i've heard that the human eye processes blue light the least accurately. (hence blueblocker glasses)
from my color studies, i know that blue and orange are opposite on the color wheel.
it's possible that the orange light is the most accurate....and in low lighting conditions, maybe your eye needs less of the orange light.
i think your observation about lighting pollution is flawed if you are considering the COLOR of the light to be the source. (though i'm not ruling it out).
other explations:
- shear quantity...in the past lower light levels were acceptable. current home associations and city codes may be forceing more lumens per square foot in any given situtation.
-more air polution. this could be another answer. in a city like san antonio, our air has ONLY worsened over the last 20 years. (if you are thinking about cities in california that might have a reverse trend)
-where you live now might be different then where you grew up
etcetcetc
just read elsewhere in this thread that shear quantity is pretty much the problem.
not the color.
Last year, near Rochester, NY, I took my 8 year old and 12 year old out at 4 AM to see the meteor shower. We counted over 100 in about 30 minutes, and got sick of counting. It was totally awswome. We took out a tarp which we spread in a field, and crawled in our sleeping bags.
We stayed out for about 2 hours. We were still seeing 1 every couple of minutes when we went back inside.
If you had your eyes open, and were looking anyplace in the sky, you couldn't help but see them.
Here's a way to hear it even if you can't see it.