If the stars line up, Ontario residents can see a spectacular celestial spectacle early Tuesday morning, an event that astronomers call a “meteorite storm.”
CTV News science and technology expert Dan Riskin said astronomers predict that around 1 a.m. Tuesday, people may witness this rare event, or possibly see nothing significant.
Astronomers say they predict that on Monday night the Earth will pass through debris tracks left by a broken comet, which broke in 1995.
The broken comet, called comet 73P / Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 [SW3]was first discovered in 1930. The comet was weak for most of its years until it broke in 1995 when it became 600 times brighter.
“If the pieces are the right size and if the pieces are moving at the right speed, which we don’t really know, but it’s possible, we could get something beyond a meteor shower,” Riskin said Monday afternoon. .
“We could get what is called a meteor storm with thousands of meteors per hour, and that would peak around 1 a.m. Toronto time.”
In comparison, scientists say that a normal meteor shower averages one meteor every minute, about 60 per hour. The importance of the event, however, depends largely on the speed and direction of the fragments.
“If you feel like getting up in the middle of the night, get out around 1am, try to get to a place without light pollution and look at the sky,” Riskin said.
“It will be a fabulous show or it will be absolutely nothing, and no one knows.”