Quadrantid meteor shower: January 3-4, 2008

William Atkins
Thursday, 03 January 2008 18:30

Science - Space

The Quadrantid meteor shower is expected to produce a brief-but-intense number of meteors between the hours of 9:00 p.m. Thursday night to 2:00 a.m. Friday morning (0200 UTC and 0700 UTC) over the Northern Hemisphere.

Astronomers consider the Quadrantids to be one of the strongest meteor showers of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. However it will only be a short display, about eight hours in duration at its best observations.

At its peak, which is predicted early in the morning on January 4th, the display should contain between 50 to 130 meteors per hour. Sky-observers can also look at the Quadrantids on January 5th, but it will be well past its peak at this time.

Astronomers are predicting that those folks in the eastern portion of the United States, Europe, and the western portions of Asia will get the best views.

The near-Earth asteroid 2003 EH1 (also classified as a minor planet) is the celestial object considered by many astronomers as producing the Quadrantid meteor shower. In 2003, astronomers discovered that the asteroid is the likely parent body of the Quadrantids.

Astronomers are especially interested in this year’s meteor shower because they want to find out if asteroid 2003 EH1 is really a fragment of comet that earlier broke apart. 

Some astronomers contend that the asteroid is a left-over body from a comet that broke up around 500 years ago. Astronomers from Korea, China, and Japan have recently discovered comet C/1490 U1 in a orbital position that is very similar to 2003 EH1. They are analyzing these orbits further to see if the asteroid may have originated from this comet.

A sky map of the event appears at: http://spaceweather.com/images2008/04jan08/skymap_north_quadrantids.gif?PHPSESSID=l3ga4aog1bceifsqm7i26a4en4

The Quadrantid meteor shower will appear in the northern sky, coming out of the constellation Bootes. Its name is a reference to Quadrans Muralis, a no-longer recognized constellation that is contained within Bootes.

Scientists will be studying the Quadrantids. The Quadrantic MAC mission, using facilities at NASA’s Ames Research Center, in California, is planning to observe the Quadrantid meteor shower from about 40,000 to 50,000 feet in altitude where the elevation is desirable for counting meteors and for measuring spectra of meteoroid composition. (To distinquish: meteroids are found in space, meteors fly through Earth atmosphere, and meteorites hit the Earth.)

One team plans to fly north for about five hours beginning at about 4:30 p.m. PST on January 3rd. The other team plans to circumnavigate the North Pole, just south of the pole, between the evening of January 3rd and the morning of January 4th.

Team members include scientists and participants from the NASA Ames Research Center, Lockheed Martin, California Institute of Technology, SETI Institute, Dexter School and Southfield School, and the European Space Agency’s European Space Research and Technology Center (ESTEC).

The website MeteorShowersOnline.com provides further information, background, and another sky map on the Quadrantids: http://meteorshowersonline.com/quadrantids.html.