Shooting Stars
This weekend, on Sunday 18th to be precise, you have a chance to see one of those amazing astronomical sights. It happens more often than you think, but people rarely go out to watch. If you look towards the South in the hours before dawn you may well catch sight of some shooting stars. Apparently the frequency is likely to be about 10 every hour so, although not the most dense of meteor showers, perusal of the night sky in the correct direction for as little as ten minutes should be rewarded with an observation.
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Shooting stars are of course not really stars falling from the sky, this would be a whole different occurrence resulting in the complete destruction of the Earth, an event I don't really want to consider at this time. They are in fact pieces of dust or rock ranging from the size of a grain to the size of a golf ball. As the Earth orbits the Sun it collides with these pieces of rock which upon falling through the atmosphere at speed and encountering friction due to air resistance burn up due to the thermal energy produced.
Shooting stars can occur any night but at certain times of the year the Earth encounters a meteor shower. At these times the Earth is moving through the debris that has been released by a comet as its orbit comes close to the Sun. As a comets elliptical orbit brings it close to the Sun it starts to melt and it ejects in it wake material. When the Earth's orbit moves through this material we encounter a meteor shower.
Of course seeing a shooting star is much prettier than actually knowing exactly what it is and for some quite a romantic thing; nothing is quite like lying on the grass on a warm summers night watching for shooting stars. At rhis time of the year it loses it edge a bit, in the winter it's a much chillier affair.
For a perfect chance to see these brilliant diamonds falling from the sky you will need to wait until next month, on the nights of the 13th and 14th of December in the NE there is the heaviest of meteor showers with an average 75 shooting stars predicted hourly. This may encourage a few of us to brave the winter chill, here's hoping the sky is clear.
Shooting stars are of course not really stars falling from the sky, this would be a whole different occurrence resulting in the complete destruction of the Earth, an event I don't really want to consider at this time. They are in fact pieces of dust or rock ranging from the size of a grain to the size of a golf ball. As the Earth orbits the Sun it collides with these pieces of rock which upon falling through the atmosphere at speed and encountering friction due to air resistance burn up due to the thermal energy produced.
Shooting stars can occur any night but at certain times of the year the Earth encounters a meteor shower. At these times the Earth is moving through the debris that has been released by a comet as its orbit comes close to the Sun. As a comets elliptical orbit brings it close to the Sun it starts to melt and it ejects in it wake material. When the Earth's orbit moves through this material we encounter a meteor shower.
Of course seeing a shooting star is much prettier than actually knowing exactly what it is and for some quite a romantic thing; nothing is quite like lying on the grass on a warm summers night watching for shooting stars. At rhis time of the year it loses it edge a bit, in the winter it's a much chillier affair.
For a perfect chance to see these brilliant diamonds falling from the sky you will need to wait until next month, on the nights of the 13th and 14th of December in the NE there is the heaviest of meteor showers with an average 75 shooting stars predicted hourly. This may encourage a few of us to brave the winter chill, here's hoping the sky is clear.
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