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posted by takyon on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the rain-and-snow-predicted-for-your-area dept.

Time to get the telescopes out:

If it's clear Wednesday night and Thursday before dawn, keep a lookout high overhead for the "shooting stars" of the Geminid meteor shower. That's the peak night for this annual display.

Sky & Telescope magazine predicts that, if you are viewing under a clear, dark sky, you might see a Geminid meteor every minute or two, on average, from 10 p.m. local time on December 13th until dawn on December 14th.

"The Geminids are usually one of the two best meteor showers of the year," says Alan MacRobert, senior editor at Sky & Telescope. "Sometimes they're more impressive than the better-known Perseids of August."

If it's cloudy on the night of the peak, some Geminid meteors should still be visible for a few nights before and after the peak. If you live under the artificial skyglow of light pollution, you'll see fewer meteors overall, but the brightest ones will shine through. This year there'll be no interference from a thin waning crescent moon, which doesn't rise until after 3 a.m.

takyon: The parent body of the Geminid meteor shower, the 5.1 km asteroid 3200 Phaethon, will make its closest approach to Earth on December 16 at about 0.0689 AU. It won't come closer until the year 2093.

The Mysterious Asteroid Behind the Year's Best Meteor Shower


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:05PM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:05PM (#609728) Journal

    Space dust already covers many orders of magnitude:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid#Size_distribution [wikipedia.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Asteroids_by_size_and_number.svg [wikipedia.org]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event#Airbursts [wikipedia.org]

    The most impressive impacts happened early in Earth's history, such as:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_(planet) [wikipedia.org]

    What we see today in the solar system is relatively settled, after an earlier period full of violent impact events with Moon-sized objects. So unless a passing star strongly interferes with objects in our solar system, we don't get to experience cool orders of magnitude like Jupiter slamming into Earth or vice versa.

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  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Friday December 15 2017, @07:52AM

    by anubi (2828) on Friday December 15 2017, @07:52AM (#610180) Journal

    Thanks!

    Sure seems to me knowing when I "make dust" by physical means, I get a lot of really tiny stuff... and if those meteors have brought stuff in their tails that are large enough to illuminate the night sky with their incandescent trails through our atmosphere, I would expect enough dust to make a "Northern Lights" type display in our atmosphere, in addition to "sandblasting" every satellite in orbit. But I do not see that. And wonder why.

    Given the Wikipedia table you linked to about size distribution... it stopped at 100 Meters. 25 Million. Well, given the ratio of asteroids to the cubic meters of space available, its almost a zero probability of getting nailed by one, said probability only expressable in scientific notation... but what if we consider particles in the uM range? I don't see near as many as I would expect to see. I would think the probability of getting nailed with one of them would be almost a certainity over a 1 year time frame.

    I would imagine the finest baby powder, traveling at 40,000MPH+ would quickly disable any satellite.

    Only explanation I can think of as to why this is not happening is the Solar Wind blows them away.

    I have read Gleik's treatise on Chaos theory. I can think of fewer more complex examples of chaos generators than all the interrelating gravitational fields taking place in the asteroid belt. Just one good-sized interplanetary interloper passing through that belt oughta cause a helluva lotta chaos.

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    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]