Stargazers may see some celestial fireworks this Memorial Day weekend thanks to a new meteor shower from a comet that, according to some forecasts,
has the potential to trigger a spectacular meteor storm late tonight and early Saturday (May 23 and 24). If bad weather spoils your view, you can
watch it live online.
Indeed, there appears to be a chance that a very significant new meteor shower – possibly even the best of 2014 – could take place. The progenitor of
this possible display is Comet 209P/LINEAR, a tiny periodic comet discovered in 2004 by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project (LINEAR).
If rain or clouds spoil your stargazing view during the new shower, called the Camelopardalid meteor shower, there are webcasts tonight streaming live
views of the celestial event. [How to See the New Camelopardalid Meteor Shower]
The online community telescope Slooh.com will offer two webcasts, one at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT) and another at 11 p.m. EDT (0300 May 24 GMT) to
chronicle the meteor shower. You can also watch the Slooh meteor webcast feed and others on Space.com. NASA will also offer live views from all-sky
cameras at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The Virtual Telescope Project in Italy will also offer a live feed
beginning at 1:30 a.m. EDT (0530 GMT) on Saturday morning (May 24).
Comet 209P/LINEAR takes about five years to circle the sun and several reputable meteor scientists agree that Earth is now on a collision course with
a number of dusty debris trails shed by 209P/LINEAR, which may cause an outburst of meteor activity during the overnight hours tonight. Computer
simulations show all the trails of dust ejected by this comet between 1803 and 1924 – 25 in all – falling directly in the Earth's path tonight.
One scientist, Mikiya Sato of Japan, has one of these trails, shed by the comet in 1903, coming to within just 4,200 miles (6,700 km) of Earth’s
orbit. As a consequence, an unusually strong meteor display appears to be within the realm of possibility.
Editor's Note: If you capture an amazing photo of the new meteor shower, or any other night sky view, that you'd like to share for a possible story or
image gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.
How many meteors?
In the 2014 Observer’s Handbook of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, authors Margaret Campbell-Brown and Peter Brown: "It is highly likely
this will be the strongest meteor display of 2014 visible from North America." [How Meteor Storms Work (Infographic)]
But just how much dust has the comet released into space remains questionable. Two astronomers at the University of Western Ontario, Quanzhi Ye and
Paul Wiegert, have determined that the comet is relatively depleted in dust production and might produce only a handful of bright meteors.
Meanwhile, French astronomer Jérémie Vaubailion is forecasting anywhere from 100 to 400 "shooting stars" per hour, while two other meteor sleuths,
Mikhail Maslov of Russia and Esko Lytinnen of Finland, think that a full-blown meteor storm of up to 1,000 per hour cannot be completely discounted.
When and where to look
The meteors are predicted to stream from the direction of the dim and almost formless constellation of Camelopardalis, the Giraffe for about three
hours tonight around 3:10 a.m. Eastern Time (12:10 a.m. Pacific Time). That means that the United States and southern Canada will be in the best
position to see whatever activity occurs, since it will be taking place in a dark sky between midnight and dawn.
Camelopardalis will be situated low in the north-northwest sky below and slightly to the left of Polaris (the North Star). So the meteors will appear
to be streaming up from out of the northern part of the sky.
Bright and slow
There will be no mistaking the meteors from this new shower if they show up. The meteors are likely to be bright and unusually slow-moving. They'll be
bright because the simulations suggest that the debris should be skewed strongly toward relatively large particles, larger than 1 millimeter.
If this doesn't sound very large to you, keep in mind that the high speeds that these particles ram into the Earth's atmosphere, friction releases the
kinetic energy of the object in a short-lived flash of light. The energy released per gram of the meteoroid's weight far exceeds the energy efficiency
of the most powerful man-made explosives. So, an object the size of a pebble can blaze across the sky with a brilliance rivaling Jupiter, or Venus. So
there is a chance that we could be treated to some outstandingly bright meteors.
As for their apparent speed, the meteors will hit the atmosphere at a mere 11 miles per second (18 kilometers per second), far slower than those of
any of the annual showers. The December Geminids arrive at about twice that speed, the Perseid meteor shower in August three times and the November
Leonids four times.
So instead of swift streaks that blaze into incandescence within a heartbeat and are gone just a second or two later, tonight’s meteors might move
across the sky in a relatively slow, almost majestic manner.
The moon will be a waning crescent, just 4.5 days from its dark "new" phase, and it doesn't rise until around 3 a.m. so it will be of little or no
hindrance for prospective observers.
All you'll need is a clear sky. Good luck and good observing
geezo...you know me, I hate to miss any kind of party...so I got up at 1:30 and got my chair into a good viewing spot and waited...and waited...and
waited. Jeezo, I saw one lame estrella fugaz...shooting star and that was it....then I couldnt get back to sleep. Later I tossed and turned thinking I
was missing it so I got up again at 3:30 for another half hour and saw only 1 again...dang...missed alot of sleep for a boring party!
Yup, I had my chair all positioned, and waited from 11:00 until 1:00 this morning, and didn't see anything but our amazing canopy of stars. Was that
Mars in the WNW about 35° above the horizon?
Undoubtedly, there are people who cannot afford to give the anchor of sanity even the slightest tug. Sam Harris
"The situation is far too dire for pessimism."
Bill Kauth
Carl Sagan said, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
We just returned from a lovely night of camping on Juncalito beach to see the show. We took the brand new inflatable air mattress to sleep in comfort
in the back of the pick-up only to learn that the plug was sold separately!
Plan B we used it as a tarp to sleep on the pristine sands under the warm glow
of the all-night construction lights of Mirador Frida We did see many stars,
though not to the north, northwest and some nice shooting stars straight
overhead, and an ambulance that came down the beach at about 10:30 to ask if we had called for one
All in all a great night of having experiences for Don to write songs about...and...
GET THIS!!... he just found the lock valve to the air mattress in the box we didn't bring!
Originally posted by Paula
We just returned from a lovely night of camping on Juncalito beach to see the show. We took the brand new inflatable air mattress to sleep in comfort
in the back of the pick-up only to learn that the plug was sold separately!
Plan B we used it as a tarp to sleep on the pristine sands under the warm glow
of the all-night construction lights of Mirador Frida We did see many stars,
though not to the north, northwest and some nice shooting stars straight
overhead, and an ambulance that came down the beach at about 10:30 to ask if we had called for one
All in all a great night of having experiences for Don to write songs about...and...
GET THIS!!... he just found the lock valve to the air mattress in the box we didn't bring!
Sounds like a great adventure to me...but then we are easily amused here in Loreto!
Thanks for the reports. As much as I enjoy a good light show, they are difficult to see in May near the Pacific coast. Nonetheless, around midnight I
tried driving 30 miles inland to get away from San Diego city lights/overcast.
No luck. Fewer lights, si. Overcast= still there.
I strained to see thru the clouds until 1:30 AM, drove home disappointed but unsure if I had actually missed anything...
\"Probably the airplanes will bring week-enders from Los Angeles before long, and the beautiful poor bedraggled old town will bloom with a
Floridian ugliness.\" (John Steinbeck, 1940, discussing the future of La Paz, BCS, Mexico)
yet another astro-event which turned out to be a total bust, many amateurs across N America reported only a handful of meteors, bummer!
\"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear
and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.There is another theory which states that this has already happened\"
Nate went up to Julian to shoot the shower. It was clear, but not much of a show. Lots of light pollution, we have to make it out to Baja Dark skies
sometime soon.
Here is a time lapse he came up with. I still can't remember how to post YouTube videos to BN...
Originally posted by Frank
Nate went up to Julian to shoot the shower. It was clear, but not much of a show. Lots of light pollution, we have to make it out to Baja Dark skies
sometime soon.
Here is a time lapse he came up with. I still can't remember how to post YouTube videos to BN...
"If it were lush and rich, one could understand the pull, but it is fierce and hostile and sullen.
The stone mountains pile up to the sky and there is little fresh water. But we know we must go back
if we live, and we don't know why." - Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
"People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." - Theodore Roosevelt
"You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them or to them." - Malcolm Forbes
"Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others
cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you." - Jim Rohn
"The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer." - Cunningham's Law
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Plan B we used it as a tarp to sleep on the pristine sands
under the warm glow
of the all-night construction lights of Mirador Frida
We did see many stars,
though not to the north, northwest
and some nice shooting stars straight
overhead, and an ambulance that came down the beach at about 10:30 to ask if we had called for one
