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2007 Perseid meteor shower

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2007 Perseid meteor shower

Old 08-11-2007, 07:39 PM
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Default 2007 Perseid meteor shower

It's time again for this year's installment of the Perseid meteor shower.

This year should be good for viewing up to 60 meteors per hour because of the new moon at the shower's peak (Aug 11th - 12th).

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The Perseids (PURR-see-idz) are a prolific meteor shower[1] associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids are so called because the point they appear to come from, called the radiant, lies in the constellation Perseus. However, they can be seen all across the sky. Because of the path of Swift-Tuttle's orbit, Perseids are mostly visible on the northern hemisphere.

The shower is visible from mid-July each year, with the greatest activity between August 8 and 14, peaking about August 12. During the peak, the rate of meteors reaches 60 or more per hour.

Meteor showers occur when Earth moves through a meteor stream. The stream in this case is called the Perseid cloud and it stretches along the orbit of the Comet Swift-Tuttle. The cloud consists of particles ejected by the comet as it passed by the Sun. Most of the dust in the cloud today is approximately a thousand years old.

However, there is also a relatively young filament of dust in the stream that boiled off the comet in 1862. The approximate rate of meteors originating from this filament is much higher than normal.

The famous Perseid meteor shower has been observed for about 2000 years, with the first known information on these meteors coming from the Far East. In early Europe, the Perseids came to be known as the "tears of St. Lawrence."

To experience the shower in its full, one should observe in the dark of a clear moonless night, from a point far outside any large cities, where stars are not dimmed by light pollution.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...atperseids.htm
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Old 08-11-2007, 07:41 PM
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I'm leaving NRT & heading back to the States in a few hours and I'm hoping for a good show. Anyone else flying an all-nighter tonight?
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Old 08-11-2007, 07:46 PM
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I hope you have your camera, do not take any more pictures of crew meals, take a few shots of the Perseid and post them in the Photo section!
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Old 08-11-2007, 07:59 PM
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So that's what those were!
I blasted off from AMA at 0500 this morning, and we saw quite a few of those bad boys enroute.
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