Meteors from meteor showers from Perseids as they fly through the night sky, August 14, 2016, in Terlingua, Texas. Future Publishing
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A meteor shower could illuminate the sky in North America at the end of Memorial Day weekend.
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According to experts, the rain could become a rare “meteor storm”, with at least 1,000 meteors every hour.
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The best time to catch the possible storm is around 1 am ET on Tuesday 31 May.
North America could enjoy a starry spectacle from Monday night to Tuesday morning as the Earth traverses the remains of a missing comet. Experts say the meteor shower, known as the Tau Herculids, has the potential to become a rare “meteor storm”, producing an attack of at least 1,000 shooting stars per hour.
Or, it could be a mistake.
The comet is known as 73P / Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (SW3 for short) and is named after two German astronomers — Arnold Schwassmann and Arno Arthur Wachmann — who discovered it in 1930. SW3 is breaking into dozens. as it revolves around the sun. every 5.4 years, NASA said in a statement.
Like all meteor showers, experts say that when the Earth passes through these comet springs, they will burn in our atmosphere and create a scattering of shooting stars.
An image of comet SW3, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as it approached the sun in 2006. NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (APL / JHU), M. Mutchler, and Z. Levay (STScI)
The best meteor showers involve hundreds of meteors per hour, but most are in single figures. According to experts, next week’s sky show could reach thousands of meteors per hour, making it a “meteorite storm” rather than a rain.
“This is going to be an all-or-nothing event,” Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteorological Environment Office said in a statement, adding that visibility will depend on the comet’s speed. “If SW3 debris traveled 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, nothing would reach Earth and there would be no meteors. of that comet, “Cooke said.
The last “meteorite storm” to hit the sky was the 1966 Leonid meteor storm, which lasted several hours: meteors fell at a rate of 40 per second.
“People who saw the 1966 Leonids rain said they felt they had to hit the ground, so strong was the impression that the Earth was moving through space,” according to EarthSky.
The story goes on
Tau Herculis meteor shower is named after the star Tau Herculis, because from Earth, meteors appear to radiate from Tau Herculis. Experts expect next week’s event to be much shorter than Leonides’ rain of a few hours.
A meteor crosses the sky during the Perseid annual meteor shower on August 12, 2016 in Spruce Knob, West Virginia.NASA / Bill Ingalls
Fortunately, the starlight show will take place on a moonless night, making it easier to see. According to the American Meteor Society, the best window to see the cosmic screen is from 12:45 to 1:17 am ET on Tuesday, May 31st.
While the light screen should be visible from North and South America, star observers in the southwestern U.S. and Mexico will have the best view, as this is where the meteor shower will be most high in the night sky.
“We believe that this event has the potential to be something spectacular,” the company said on its website. “When you see events like this, you have to hope that nothing extraordinary happens, but you certainly expect the best!”
Read the original article in Business Insider