Friday, June 25, 2004
Meteor activity is predicted through August, and the showers may be visible here.
By NICOLE HUGHES
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
Get a lawn chair, sit back and watch for little zips of light this summer.
Earth is constantly being rained on by meteors, and two showers will be visible through August.
"People who grow lettuce get about one meteor particle in every salad," said Clyde Simpson, observatory coordinator at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. "It takes weeks for the particles to actually fall to the ground."
Meteors appear as fast-moving streaks of light in the night sky, and they become visible as a result of friction caused by air molecules slamming against their surface, according to the American Meteor Society.
"A meteor shower is named after the constellation it appears by," said Warren Young, chairman of the Department of Physics & amp; Astronomy and planetarium director at Youngstown State University. "The best way to view a shower is to find the darkest location and look near that constellation."
When?
The meteor shower June Bootids can be seen Saturday through July 2, and may peak around Sunday, according to the International Meteor Organization.
This area of the sky is in Northern Bootes, some 15 degrees southeast of the last star in the handle of the Big Dipper, said Robert Lunsford, American Meteor Society operations manager, in his weekly meteor activity outlook.
The showers this month will have about 10 meteors per hour, Young said.
The meteor shower Perseid will be visible July 17 through Aug. 24.
"The Perseid shower will be excellent this year," Simpson said. "This will be the first time in a couple of years that we will have a moonless evening."
People should look northeast around 10 p.m. The meteors originate from the Perseus constellation and fan out to under the Cassiopeia constellation, Simpson said.
More meteors will be visible from the Perseid than in other showers, and they will be brighter because the chunks of material are larger, Young said.
Frequency
There will be one meteor every minute or so, and they will go so fast that people won't be able to use binoculars or telescopes to see them, Simpson said.
"The meteors from this shower are the size of a sand grain and plow into the earth at 20 miles per second," he said. "It is amazing that such a tiny particle can cause such an energetic burst of light."
The shower will peak around 7 a.m. Aug. 12, so there will be good observation Wednesday night after midnight, Simpson said.
"The Perseid shower is slowly decreasing in brightness every year," he said.
"It will take several hundred years to disappear, so we still have a few more centuries of enjoyment."
nhughes@vindy.com