Perseid Meteor Shower To Peak This Weekend

Krishna Dagli writes "This weekend provides one of the year's best opportunities to see some "shooting stars". The annual Perseid meteor display is expected to peak on Friday and Saturday night. Meteors are bits of dust or rock that plunge into the Earth's atmosphere and burn up, making bright streaks in the sky. It does not take a large object to produce a visible meteor — most are the size of a grain of sand or a small pebble."

Comments

We dont like the Moon!

[Gothmolly]

This year's Perseid shower is a dud, due to a nearly full moon.

Re:We dont like the Moon!

[Typingsux]

The moons average albedo is .12. Just imagine if it didn't have the reflectivity of charcoal!

Re:Late Late Late

[eln]

Really, what's the point of even posting this now? If people weren't aware of it, it's too late to do anything about it now. Personally, living in an urban area, I would have to travel an hour or more away just to get far enough out of the city to be able to see this thing, so maybe a post about it on, say, thursday night or friday afternoon would have been more helpful.

I've seen the Perseid shower before, on Boy Scout trips as a youth, but watching it with my own son would be quite an experience. Oh well, this story at least reminded me of it, so maybe I'll be able to prepare to see it next year.

Re:Late Late Late

[BootNinja]

Wrong. The perseids occur every august.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseids. He can see them next year. I agree, though, it would've been nice to have a more timely reminder.

Re:Late Late Late

[bdp]

The comet has a period of 133 years, but the Earth passes through the debris left by the comet every year.

Re:Not merely 3rd grade science...

[bdp]

It should also be noted that the distinction between meteors and meteorites is one of particle size, not composition, and since this is 3rd grade science it should be added that meteors are the smaller of the two.

That's not true. The distinction between a meteor and a meteorite is that meteors do not fall all the way to the ground, and meteorites do.

Since the comet takes 150 years to complete an orbit, it would also seem to follow that there must be less debris in successive years until the comet sweeps by again, so you've missed all the really good showers until 2126 anyway.

This also isn't true. Stuff continues to move out there, so we don't pass through the exact same spot in the debris trail every year. How big the meteor shower is varies from year to year.

I'll let somebody else point out that the orbit is 133 years, not 150.

Re:Late Late Late

[JPribe]

Put it on your calendar for next year, there won't be any moon to contend with. I took the wife and my Canon 20d out...while I didn't get any good photos of streaking light (I have better luck with lightning,) we did see a few really good ones, but the moon rose about 10:30 and it was a waste after that. The moon is just past full, and was really, really bright tonight.

Re:Jeez

[HotmanParisHiltonKam]

And in fact the meteor is the light trail itself, not the lump of matter that creates the light trail by burning (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/meteor). The lump is called a meteoroid and any part of it that hits the Earth as anything more than vapour is a meteorite.

Yay for dumbing down science for the masses.

Re:Late Late Late

[castrox]

It is only peaking this weekend. It will be visible a great deal longer - till august 20th or something. So pack your bags...