Meteors from the Perseid Meteor Stream while shooting through the night sky, on August 14, 2016, in Terlingua, Texas. Future Publishing
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A meteor shower could light up the skies over North America at the end of Remembrance Day weekend.
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Rain could turn into a rare “meteor storm” with at least 1,000 meteors per hour, experts say.
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The best time to catch a possible storm is around 1 a.m. ET on Tuesday, May 31st.
North America can enjoy a stellar spectacle late Monday night through Tuesday morning as the Earth passes through the wreckage of a non-existent comet. Experts say the meteor shower, known as the Tau Herculids, has the potential to turn into a rare “meteor storm” – causing pressure from at least 1,000 shooting stars per hour.
Or it could be nonsense.
The comet is known as 73P / Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (SW3 for short) and is named after the two German astronomers – Arnold Schwassmann and Arno Arthur Wachmann – who discovered it in 1930. SW3 disintegrates into dozens of pieces as it revolves around the sun. every 5.4 years, a NASA statement said.
Like all meteor showers, experts say that when the Earth passes through these comets, they will burn in our atmosphere and create a scattering of shooting stars.
Image of comet SW3 made by the Hubble Space Telescope as it approaches the sun in 2006. NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (APL / JHU), M. Mutchler and Z. Levay (STScI)
The best meteor showers include hundreds of meteors per hour – but most are in single numbers. The celestial show for next week could reach thousands of meteors per hour, making it a “meteor storm”, unlike rain, according to experts.
“It will be an event for all or nothing,” said NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Service in a statement, adding that visibility would depend on the comet’s speed. “If the SW3 debris was traveling at more than 220 miles per hour when it separated from the comet, we could see a nice meteor shower. If the debris had a lower ejection rate, then nothing will reach Earth and there will be no meteors from this comet, “Cook said.
The last “meteor storm” to decorate the sky was the 1966 Leonid meteor storm, which lasted several hours – meteors falling at speeds of up to 40 per second.
“People who have watched Leonid’s soul since 1966 say they feel they need to hold on to the earth, so strong was the impression that the Earth was moving through space,” according to EarthSky.
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The Tau Herculid meteor shower is named after the star Tau Hercules, because from the Earth meteors seem to radiate from Tau Hercules. Experts expect next week’s event to be much shorter than Leonid’s long shower.
Meteor stripes in the sky during the annual Perseid meteor shower on August 12, 2016 in Spruce Nob, West Virginia. NASA / Bill Ingals
Fortunately, the star light show will take place on a moonless night, which will make it easier to watch. According to the American Meteor Society, the best window for viewing the space display is from 12:45 to 1:17 ET on Tuesday, May 31.
Although the light display should be visible from North and South America, observers of stars in the southwestern United States and Mexico will have the best view, because it is there that the meteor shower will be highest in the night sky.
“We believe that this event has a chance to be something spectacular,” the public explained on their website. “When you watch events like this, one should not expect anything extraordinary, but certainly hope for the best!”
Read the original article in Business Insider
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