Night sky watchers in North America have the best chance of seeing the Tau Herculian shower, with NASA recommending about 1 a.m. on the East Coast or 10 p.m. on the West Coast as the best time to look up. The moon is new, so there will be no moonlight to hide the meteors.
However, there is no guarantee of a dazzling display, even if the sky is clear and dark, NASA said. Nothing could be achieved.
The comet, officially known as 73P / Schwassmann-Wachmann, or SW3, was discovered in 1930 by German observers Arnold Schwassmann and Arno Arthur Wachmann. It was not seen again until the late 1970s, and in the 1990s the comet shattered into several pieces, NASA said.
By the time SW3 crossed Earth again in 2006, it was nearly 70 pieces and has continued to fragment since then, the statement said.
NASA said observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope, published in 2009, show that some fragments are moving fast enough to be visible, exciting space scientists.
Each year, there are about 30 meteor showers that appear when the Earth passes through traces of debris left by a comet or asteroid that are visible to the naked eye.
Some meteor showers have been around for centuries. For example, the Perseid meteor shower, which occurs every year in August, was first observed about 2,000 years ago and recorded by Chinese astronomers, NASA said. New meteor showers like this, if they materialize, are relatively rare.
All or Nothing Event
SW3 debris will hit the Earth’s atmosphere more slowly than other meteor showers, and this is the rate at which debris hits, not the size of the debris that causes the rain.
Even if they are visible, this means that the meteors would be much weaker, for example, than the eta Aquariids meteors earlier this month. “It will be an all-or-nothing event. If the SW3 debris traveled more than 220 miles per hour when it separated from the comet, we could see a nice meteor shower. If the debris had a slower ejection rate, then nothing would reach Earth and there would be no meteors from that comet, “said Bill Cook, who heads NASA’s meteorological environment department at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Space Center. in Huntsville, Alabama.
Meteor showers are usually named after the constellation they appear to emit into the night sky, although Robert Lunsford, secretary general of the International Meteorological Organization, said the Tau Herculids were incorrectly named. He said it would appear to radiate from a constellation known as Bootes, northwest of the brilliant orange star known as Arcturus (alpha Bootis).
“The radiant is expected to be a large area of the sky, not an exact point. So any slow meteor from this common area of the sky can be expected to be from SW3,” Lunsford said in a blog post.
“You don’t have to look directly from above, because meteors can appear in any part of the sky. In fact, they are more likely to appear at lower altitudes in the sky, because at these altitudes one looks through a much thicker part of the atmosphere than when we look straight ahead. up.”
More meteor showers
If the Tau Herculian rain turns out to be stupid, don’t be afraid, there are several other opportunities to witness meteor showers this year.
Delta Aquariums are best seen in the southern tropics and will peak between July 28 and 29, when the moon is 74% full.
Interestingly, on the same night the peak of another meteor shower reaches the peak – Alpha Kozikornids. Although it is a much weaker shower, it is known to produce several bright fireballs during its peak. It will be visible to all, regardless of which side of the equator they are located.
The most popular Perseid meteor shower of the year will peak between August 11 and 12 in the Northern Hemisphere, when the moon is only 13% full.
Here is the schedule of meteor showers for the rest of the year, according to EarthSky’s forecast for meteor showers.
- October 8: Draconids
- October 21: Orionids
- November 4 to 5: Southern Taurids
- November 11 to 12: Northern Tauris
- November 17: Leonids
- December 13-14: Geminids
- December 22: Ursidi
Ashley Strickland contributed to this report.
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