Observers of the night sky in North America have the best chance of seeing the Herculid Tau rain, and NASA recommends around 1am on the east coast or 10:00 pm on the west coast as the best time to look at up. The moon is new, so there will be no moonlight darkening the meteors.
However, there is no guarantee of a dazzling screen even if the sky is clear and dark, NASA stressed. It could come to nothing.
The comet, officially known as 73P / Schwassmann-Wachmann, or SW3, was discovered in 1930 by German observers Arnold Schwassmann and Arno Arthur Wachman. It was not seen again until the late 1970s and in the 1990s the comet shattered into several pieces, NASA said.
When SW3 passed through Earth again in 2006, it was in almost 70 pieces and has continued to fragment even further since then, according to the statement.
NASA said observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope published in 2009 indicated that some fragments were moving fast enough to be visible and exciting to space scientists.
Each year, there are about 30 meteor showers, which occur when the Earth traverses the trail of debris left by a comet or asteroid, which are visible to the naked eye.
Some meteor showers have existed for centuries. For example, the Perseid meteor shower, which occurs every year in August, was first observed about 2,000 years ago and recorded by Chinese astronomers, NASA said. New meteor showers like this, if they materialize, are relatively rare.
“All or nothing” event
SW3 debris will hit the Earth’s atmosphere more slowly than other meteor showers and it is the speed at which debris collides rather than the size of debris that causes rain.
Even if it were visible, it means that meteors would be much weaker, for example, than meteors and Aquariids earlier this month. “This will be an all-or-nothing event. If the SW3 debris was traveling at more than 220 miles per hour when it separated from the comet, we could see a good meteor shower. If the debris had slower ejection rates, then nothing “It will reach Earth and there will be no meteors from this comet,” Bill Cooke, who heads NASA’s Meteorological Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, said in a statement. Alabama.
Meteor showers are often named after the constellation from which they appear to radiate into the night sky, although Robert Lunsford, secretary general of the International Meteorological Organization, said the Tau Hercules had been misnamed. He said they appeared to radiate from a constellation known as Bootes, northwest of the bright orange star known as Arcturus (alpha Bootis).
“The radiant is expected to be a large area of the sky and not a point. Therefore, any slow meteor in this general area of the sky can be expected to be SW3,” Lunsford said in a blog post.
“It is not necessary to look directly upwards, as meteors can appear anywhere in the sky. In fact, they are more likely to appear at lower elevations in the sky, as these elevations are being looked at through a portion. of the atmosphere much thicker than when looking straight up. “
More meteor showers
If Herculides tau rain turns out to be a mistake, don’t be afraid, there are several other opportunities to witness meteor showers this year.
Delta aquariums are best seen from the southern tropics and will peak between July 28 and 29, when the moon is 74% full.
Interestingly, another meteor shower reaches its peak the same night: the Alpha Capricornids. Although this is a much weaker rain, it is known to produce some bright fireballs during its peak. It will be visible to everyone, no matter which side of the equator they are on.
The Perseid meteor shower, the most popular of the year, will peak between August 11 and 12 in the northern hemisphere, when the moon is only 13% full.
This is the meteor shower schedule for the rest of the year, according to EarthSky’s meteor shower prospects.
- October 8: Draconids
- October 21: Oronides
- November 4 to 5: Southern Taurides
- From 11 to 12 November: Taurides of the North
- November 17: Leonides
- December 13 to 14: Geminids
- December 22: Ursids
Ashley Strickland contributed to this report.