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Aug 11, 2009 02:30 PM | 31
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The next couple nights—between midnight and 5 A.M.—will be the best opportunities to crane your neck upward and check out the Perseid meteor shower.
The shower, which happens every year when Earth passes through the debris trail left by Comet Swift-Tuttle, started in late July and lasts for a few weeks.
This year, although skies are expected to be clear through much of the Midwest and West, the moon is waning gibbous (still nearly three quarters full) and will be rising at about 10 P.M., just before the meteor action heats up over North America (about midnight, continuing on into the wee hours of Wednesday and Thursday).
But that's no reason to stay indoors, say some experts. "Every once in awhile," Joe Rao of SPACE.com, noted in a post today, "a Perseid fireball will blaze forth, bright enough to be quite spectacular and more than capable to attract attention even in bright moonlight."
City and suburban light pollution can be another challenge to spotting the fainter flashes. But a clear sky could yield more than 100 visible meteors an hour, according to SPACE.com.
Have some good counts, observations, photos or videos of the shower already? Send them our way at twitter.com/sciam.
Happy showering.
Image of a Perseid meteor courtesy of madmilked via Flickr
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meteor shower
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31 Comments
Add CommentDude, If you 'Buzzing' the next Apocalypse Movie or 2012 - You're so not gonna get could traffic here. Perhaps SciAm needs a better Captcha & U R just a bot? - Peace
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe asteroid called "2007 TU24" will not get any closer than several hundred thousand miles from Earth. The closest approach will occur on December 21, 2012. The hullabaloo is being propagated by some "end of the world" fanatics who believe that the coincidence of a predicted close approach and the occurrence of last day of the Mayan calendar somehow prove something.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbigjohn_142, are you serious?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdave1207 is right. The Mayans believed that "the fifth age of the world" would end on December 12, 2012. (Don't ask me why.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe the Mayans just got tired of writing, and decided that date would be the end of their calander, during the "age of the fifth world". We also need to think about how fast the Earth is moving around the sun, ever try to his a moving target?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiant meteor hitting Earth, I have better odds on hitting a speeding bullet with spit ball. I think the Mayan calander thing is just that a calander, they figured that they the mayans would begone by 2012, and got tired of writting out something that no one would use. So they choose the "fifth age of the world" as a good time, and put some ice on their hands.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiant meteor hitting Earth, I have better odds on hitting a speeding bullet with spit ball. I think the Mayan calander thing is just that a calander, they figured that they the mayans would begone by 2012, and got tired of writting out something that no one would use. So they choose the "fifth age of the world" as a good time, and put some ice on their hands.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen you're car trip meter reaches 999,999miles does your car cease to exist or does the trip meter just turn back to zero? I realise most cars don't quite make it to 1 million miles, but some do and the Mayans had the same philosophy in mind with their calender. However, they, like most cars, didn't make it to the point where their trip meter or calender turned over again to zero. Had they actually survived, I suspect they would have been intelligent enough to realise it didn't mean the end of the world, but was a flaw in the longevity of their calender.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf all the nights the showers could happen, its going to be cloudy and possible thunderstorms in Phoenix. About the meteor take a look at the moon it has survived many hits. We have an atmosphere in which it would probably just bounce off. I think the scientists like to embelish a little bit. we have survived many hits. .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisscientists like to embelish a bit, that's an understatement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisscientists like to embelish a bit, that's an understatement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe mayan calender subject is a very comlicated subject . I've read a couple of books on it and still don't understand all of it . i do understand that it is accurate within a score of second from start time to 12/12/12 and that the end is not THE END but an end of the reality that we understand. And by the way , the mayans still exist. They lost their empire. Their language remains to this day.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi think that december 12, 20012 will bring the end cause of planet x coming close to us and the allignment of the universe.we are doomed my freind doomed
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDOOMED, DOOMED MY FREIENDS
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy understanding is that Notlimah1 is closest to the truth, I watched a special on NGC channel (forgive me for not remembering the title, therefore I expect the reader to dismiss this comment) where a number of leading college professors addressed the subject of the Apocolypse. The concensus among qualified eggheads was that the Mayans simply had no reason to continue plotting out into the future any further....Yes it may be that simple...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey people,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe world may end on that date or even before I submit this, however I
assure you, that nobody on this planet can know when this will take place,
only the Father in Heaven knows for sure. However if you are worried, I
suggest you start getting ready instead of being worried about it. If you
don't know how to prepare seek a Spirit, Bible, Jesus believing church and
get there asap.
I have something to say what give people the idea the world gonna end in 2012 i mean come on bad enough people thought the world was gonna end in 2000 . here is an idea Ill sit back and watch while people think the world is gonna end in 2012 . Come on , this world been here for a long time and there is one thing for a fact if you believe in god why would god do away with what he created ? I mean come on , If there wasnt no god there certainly wouldnt be no science , Because god gave them a brain and they should know how to used it !
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Mayans had to stop their calendar some time. It couldn't just keep going forever. I don't believe any hype around 2012 at all!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are more than just the Mayans that have predicted the 12/21/2012 end of the world. Theirs is based on astrological alignments of the planets and the "mystery" planet coming into alignment at the center of the universe. A cataclysmic event will not be stopped by mankind. If one believes that God created then God can also destroy. Armageddon. And who could blame him for what we've done to this planet and to each other. I believe in 2012 even if it doesn't happen in 2012. Who's to say our calendar is correct? I'll be happy that I won't have to pay my mortgage anymore.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismaybe they ran out of carving stone? so they were like meh whatever the future people could figure that out, and not think it the end of the world, cuz that would be dumb. No sir.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have been standing outside for 15 minutes and haven't seen a single meteor! How often do they occur? If one is suppose to see 100 in an hour, I would have thought to have seen at least ONE, I'm disappointed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbigjohn_142,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would be better..FOR YOU... to read more science before you make silly comments. You DON'T THINK a real threat would be all over the news?
Unfortunately, between the disbursement of the debris field and fullness of the waning gibbous moon the appearance of meteors was far and few between at Lat 37.0/ Long 93.5.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW, I think someone need to get a net for bigjohn_142 cause somebody left the door at the looney bin open.
Wobbler,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst..... "You're" is only used in place of "you are"
Second...... The Mayans are still here..... mostly of mixed blood now but still some pure blooded Maya left in Central and South America
Sciam needs to interview Chicken Little and get his take on all this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's comical that some people are so "filled in" as to what God is going to do! Science is... God's Work! Everyone ...can see it beauty. If I had one wish... I would wish that everyone were healthy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe all make typo's sometimes...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismaybe they ran out of carving stone? so they were like meh whatever the future people could figure that out, and not think it the end of the world, cuz that would be dumb. No sir.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow to derail scientific discussion regarding meteor shower . . .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Insert mumbo jumbo about world ending as first comment to blog
2. Let idiots do the rest . . .
Awesome discussion. The failure of the scientific community to inform the punters was never so pronounced.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirstly, the Mayans 12/12/2012 etc... isn't even in the same month or year as our 12/12/2012. Second, multiple planets align all the time. If you're concerned that the gravity of an alignment is going to destroy the world, then you know nothing of the strength of gravity, nor how planets act upon one another in space. Then, for a "mystery planet" to suddenly cruise into "center of the universe" (and where might that be?) and suddenly destroy other planets... this is so not the way the universe works I don't even know where to start.
Calendars and ages and epochs of the early astronomers end all the time, and in translations to modern languages, are often interpreted as meaning the physical destruction of the universe, by jumpy goofballs. They end. Not the universe. Not to say it won't, but it's a longgggg way off.
I understand anthropocentrics would desperately love to attribute divine knowledge to humanity, as proof of mystical this or that, but as always, they fall short. Mayan civilization had some clever, skilled people. They also had some real gullible, weak-minded fools, and some real shortcomings as a society. ...just like every civilization before & since. Romanticizing it can be fun, but in the end, is just that.
Its about 5:00 am (CST) and I jus saw a shooting star. I stay Merrillville, IN. This is just no joke or just to be writing, because i could be doing my school work, but anyway i just come from out side in there it was shooting across the sky. It made me happy to see it, because I had never seen it before.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this