William Atkins
Friday, 31 July 2009 19:41
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 3
It’s time again for the annual Perseid meteor shower. However, you have plenty of time because the peak of the Perseids isn’t until August 11th and 12th, but a few per hour are observable before then in the first ten days of August 2009.
The Perseid meteor shower is complements of debris ejected from
Comet Swift-Tuttle (109/P Swift-Tuttle) [NASA]. As comets orbit the Sun, they begin to eject icy, but dusty debris as they get closer and closer to the Sun. Such is the case with Swift-Tuttle.
Lewis Swift, from Marathon, New York, United States, discovered the comet in the constellation Camelopardalis on July 16, 1862. Swift described it as a bright object but thought he was observing Comet Schmidt.
Horace Parnell Tuttle, of Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A., observed it, too, and reported his finding on July 19 of that same year. When he made the announcement, Swift realized his mistake and also made an official announcement—thus, the name Comet Swift-Tuttle.
Late in July 2009, Bill Cooke, of NASA’s Meteroid Environment Office, states,
“Don't get too excited (right now), "We're just in the outskirts of the debris stream now. If you go out at night and stare at the sky, you'll probably only see a few Perseids per hour." [NASA (July 31, 2009): “
The Perseids are Coming"]
Cooke adds,
“Earth passes through the densest part of the debris stream sometime on August 12th. Then, you could see dozens of meteors per hour."
In the Northern Hemisphere, the most intense part of the meteor shower will commence after the Sun sets in the west on August 11, 2009, and continue on to just before the Sun rises on August 12th.
You are likely to see ten to fifteen meteors per hour, and 50 to 80 at its peak on August 11/12.
Page two talks about observers in the Southern Hemisphere.
