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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."
They're the aliens, trying to establish contact but getting attacked by the USAF.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Shoot, I missed most of it.
Hello this is Slashdot. I don't think we really needed the 3rd grade scienst lesson.
Plus you know it is sort of Sunday here in the UK, doesn't that make this news story rather useless to a large population of the readers (not to mention Americans who will be sleeping at 11pm - Guy trying to be funny. It's not funny that Slashdotters sit up late, save the joke).
I like muppets.
This year's Perseid shower is a dud, due to a nearly full moon.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
A great disturbance in the Force. It was like a million voices crying out in unison, then suddenly silenced as millions of Dads finally attempted to use their $600 Costco telescopes, only to realize they had thrown out their manuals with the box...
the mods may say you posted flamebait, but to me it's a flame that warms my heart. rock on, brother! --chebucto
I like the formatting of this story, especially the use of the anchor tag. Very refreshing.
"This weekend provides one of the year's a href="http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns? id=dn9732&feedId=space_rss20">best opportunities to see some "shooting stars". The annual Perseid meteor display is expected to peak on Friday and Saturday night. ..."
Aren't slashdot editor's meant to be able to understand HTML? Another prime example for my signature:
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
...looks like the posting's HTML got holed by one of the Perseids -- one of the tags got taken clean out!
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Perhaps a little ability to check tags before posting might be nice...?
Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. - Aldous Huxley
I've got plenty of "<'s" if the editors need some. I'll sell 'em for cheap.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
I camped on the summit of a 14,000ft peak last night. I've never seen so many shooting stars despite the full moon and the light pollution of a distant city. It was beautiful... also cold.
"Well, you should have used the preview button!"
Tags are not comments, they're ment to help people search for topics. Write a comment or leave
Well, the most common tags include "yes", "no", "fud", "notfud", "duh", and "maybe", so it appears the democratic process has pwned your opinion.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
which is funnier!
"you goatse'd my slashdot!"
"you slashdotted my goatse!"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I went out with my girlfriend tonight to take a look, but it pretty much sucked. I saw one blip and that was all. The moon was far too bright and made viewing impossible.
Could it be a rounded edge thing? It stands out like it is.It almost even *infringes*. It has potential but it could be better. WTF do i know? Nothing.
And where should I post this? Paters journal?
Make the world better. Quit hating.
My hometown of Peekskill New york got hit with a meteorite back in the 90's. It crashed through the back of an old junker car belonging to 17 year old girl. She was in tears. Turned out she got about 80,000 USD for the rock and the car. It was only known car to be hit. The car and meteorite went on display in Museum Of Natural History and other museums around the world. It was also filmed going across sky in Washington. Every year around this time I hope for my car to get hit. A view of meteor in sky before it hit is on this cool meteor site:
http://fireball.meteorite.free.fr/index_en.html
As it seems closing tags is beyond people here is the correct link for those who can't be bothered going through the rigmarole of copy & paste.
Video Game cheats, hints a
When is Leonid peaking?
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.
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.
I'll let somebody else point out that the orbit is 133 years, not 150.
The orbit is 133 years, not 150.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
I don't like the moon much either. I wish NASA would paint it black.
....they have to go there first!
Things like 'fud' and 'wishfulthinking' are perfectly valid as tags - if you want to search for stories that Slashdotters thought were FUD or wishful thinking. There's room for more than one tag - so something tagged 'linux', 'fud' and 'wishfulthinking' would allow people to, say, find stories about Linux that Slashdotters thought were fud (or wishful thinking) or just plainly about Linux.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
*looks outside*
It's cloudy tonight.
*crawls back into bed*
Maybe next time.
SImple - If I read anything about a meteor shower that is has the slightest chance of being visable to the naked eye. Then I know for a fact it will be one of the most misrable clodiest days for ages, even after few good solid weeks without a cloud in the sky.
:).
We had meteor forcast, its cloudy that even the clouds are obscured by clouds.
I there conclude that all these reports of meteor showrs are causing global warming - FIN
Will this be the only meteor shower this year of this magnitude? If I had had more warning I would have gone away camping up somewhere high and out of town.
Would really appreciate the info!
I saw about 10 in a half hour. One was awesome...streaked about 60 degrees right across my field of view. It was cloudy earlier, but it has since cleared up (5:00am CDT).
On Slashdot, you're reminded of stuff that matters a full year in advance!
Thanks!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It's a dupe because we've had reports about this on 2004/08/10, 2003/08/13, 2002/08/08, ...
I can almost see a pattern emerging... D'oh!
Deze sig is in 't Nederlands geschreven.
Staying awake all night, shivering, having to watch for critters--all to see 12, count 'em 12, streaks of light. Bah.
My fiancee and I were camping last weekend in Muskegon, Michigan and saw a pretty impressive display (maybe the beginning or the Perseids) last Saturday around 4-5am. The moon had set by then and we had a good view of Casseopia and Perseus just coming over the horizen. We hadn't gotten up originally to watch for meteors, but they got my attention when our campsite got lit up by a small fireball overhead. We watched for about 45 minutes and saw about 2 fast moving and faint meteors per minute. It was one of the better displays I have seen in my lifetime. We also saw a good fireball the following Monday west of Chicago around 9pm. The was light to moderate cloud cover and the fireball was bright enough to be seen as it moved above moderate clouds.
Just because you didn't see meteors the night they were forecast, don't be discouraged from looking in good conditions the week before and after a show is forecast.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Did google ban this from being published until Sunday? Now that it's over, what's the point?
it would be lightbulbs.
Or zeppelins.
Or puffins also I think maybe they go quite high too maybe not as high as the moon coz the moon is very high.
(For those who don't get the pop-culture reference, It makes flash worthwhile).
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Went outside 0100 to 0230 (it's always best after local midnight because THEN your location has swung around the limb so that the debris is coming head-on - kind of useless to go out before 0000). Saw 'bout a couple dozen - big 'uns 'n little 'uns. Last couple years have been cloudy in August, so this was a good one in CT.
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
Almost anybody who lives in the mountains of Colorado knows you don't need oxygen to climb a 14er. You say 10,000 feet requires oxygen? That means that all the people who are skiing at places like Crested Butte would need oxygen, since you get off the ski lift more than a thousand feet above that altitude. Skiing is also much more vigorous than flying a plane, but people don't go blind from lack of oxygen while doing it, even above 10,000 feet.
FAA regulations are overly cautious due to other circumstances which could create compound problems in which lives would be at stake. FAR 91.211 says that oxygen is required after 30 minutes of flying between 12,500 and 14,000 feet, or immediately when flying above 14,000 feet in a non-pressurized cabin. Supplemental oxygen is only suggested for flying at 10,000 feet during daylight, or 6,000 at night. But that's just a suggestion, not a requirement.
As for hypoxia during star gazing at 14,000 feet, this isn't a vigorous activity we're talking about. You'd likely not be starved for oxygen by merely laying on the ground.
Of course, none of this considers that the person who did the star gazing may have been acclimated to the altitude by spending months or years in high altitudes. When I was a kid in Colorado I saw more stars than I've ever seen anywhere else.
Naturally so, every person's reaction to it would be different. However, the PDF seems to agree with what I said, that you are enouraged to use Oxygen, but not *required*, as your original post said. That said, I'd want my pilot taking all the ncessecary precautions when flying VFR. Star gazing is still another matter altogether. ;-)
Leonid is predicted to bathe rather than shower next year as above average rainfall has been reported this year.
Busy aligning my non-linear thoughts.
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/060817_meteor_show er.html