The terminology "raining stars" takes on a literal sense when in the mountainous foothills of any Western state after sunset. We especially enjoy our "light show" most any clear night from the foothills overlooking the Sonora Desert and at a distance from the City lights of Tucson, AZ. Last night was no exception of the beauty we enjoyed gazing into the Meteor-filled sky. With so many "photo-ops", a camera does not capture the "Live Raining Stars" night show ! The Perseids radiant and adjacent constellations. Like a starburst, multiple Perseid meteors appear to radiate outward in this composite image snapped during the height of activity on August 12th, "Raining Stars Ranch", Sonora Desert Arizona herewith some NASA Photos. (NOTE: IS it any wonder we are surrounded by so many Observatories from Mountain Peak to Mountain Peak !) Considered the most visually stunning meteor shower of 2013, the Perseids peak every August, when the Earth slams into a giant cloud of debris left behind by comet Swift-Tuttle along its orbit. Perseids are also known for their fireballs. Fireballs are larger explosions of light and color that can persist longer than an average meteor streak. This is due to the fact that fireballs originate from larger particles of cometary material. Fireballs are also brighter, with magnitudes brighter than -3. While most meteors zipping across the skies are no bigger than a grain of sand, fireballs like the one pictured above can be anywhere from the size of a grapefruit to the size of a basketball. The resulting high-speed impact causes unusually bright meteors, which astronomers call bolides, which can cast shadows and even a lingering smoke trail. Perseids, like all other showers, gets its name from the constellation the meteor streaks appear to radiate out from—in this case Perseus. Where Do Meteors Come From? Meteors come from leftover comet particles and bits from broken asteroids. When comets come around the sun, they leave a dusty trail behind them. Every year the Earth passes through these debris trails, which allows the bits to enter our atmosphere where they disintegrate to create fiery and colorful streaks in the sky. The Comet The pieces of space debris that interact with our atmosphere to create the Perseids originate from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. Swift-Tuttle takes 133 years to orbit the sun once. It was Giovanni Schiaparelli who realized in 1865 that this comet was the source of the Perseids. Comet Swift-Tuttle last visited the inner solar system in 1992. Comet Swift-Tuttle was discovered in 1862 by Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle. Swift-Tuttle is a large comet -- its nucleus is 26 km (16 miles) across. (That is more than twice the size of the object hypothesized to have led the demise of the dinosaurs.) The Radiant Their radiant -- the point in the sky from which the Perseids appear to come from -- is the constellation Perseus. The constellation of Perseus is also where we get the name for the shower: Perseids. Note: The constellation for which a meteor shower is named only serves to aid viewers in determining which shower they are viewing on a given night. The constellation is not the source of the meteors.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 16:10:37 +0000
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