SPACE.com Exclusive: Spectacular Meteor Shower Possible for 2007 - Yahoo! News
SPACE.com Exclusive: Spectacular Meteor Shower Possible for 2007 - Yahoo! News: "It may not last very long, but could produce a bevy of bright, swift shooting stars for favorably positioned skywatchers. The prediction is found in a technical report, co-authored by two astronomers who are targeting Sept. 1, 2007 as the date for the potential display.
The meteors are called 'Aurigids' because they appear to fan-out from the constellation of Auriga, the Charioteer.
At least a strong shower
Meteor showers occur whenever we ride into the dusty debris left behind in a comet's orbit. The debris left behind by Kiess, a comet last seen in 1911, is what produces the Aurigids. The comet takes approximately 2,500 years to orbit the Sun, but there are also dense trails of dust traveling along its orbit. Earth has had glancing blows in the past with a few of these dust trails in 1935, 1986 and 1994.
In 2007, however, the Earth is expected to pass very close to the center of a dust trail, which astronomers Esko Lyytinen of Finland and Peter Jenniskens of
NASA's SETI Institute in California said, should result in 'a spectacularly rich shower of bright meteors.'"
The meteors are called 'Aurigids' because they appear to fan-out from the constellation of Auriga, the Charioteer.
At least a strong shower
Meteor showers occur whenever we ride into the dusty debris left behind in a comet's orbit. The debris left behind by Kiess, a comet last seen in 1911, is what produces the Aurigids. The comet takes approximately 2,500 years to orbit the Sun, but there are also dense trails of dust traveling along its orbit. Earth has had glancing blows in the past with a few of these dust trails in 1935, 1986 and 1994.
In 2007, however, the Earth is expected to pass very close to the center of a dust trail, which astronomers Esko Lyytinen of Finland and Peter Jenniskens of
NASA's SETI Institute in California said, should result in 'a spectacularly rich shower of bright meteors.'"
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