Meteor shower tonight: first for 2011

The first meteor display of 2011 – the annual Quadrantid meteor shower – will hit its peak tonight and, weather permitting, could dazzle observers across the Northern Hemisphere, skywatchers say.

The Quadrantid meteor shower is expected to peak at about 8 p.m. EST (5 p.m. PST, 0100 Jan. 4 GMT), with some forecasts of 100 meteors per hour at the height of the "shooting stars" display.

The show will be best in parts of Europe and Asia but unfortunately peaks too soon for U.S. skywatchers to expect more than a handful of shooting stars per hour.


As an added perk, the moon won't interfere with the view of the meteor shower because it is in its "new" phase, when it is passing between the Earth and sun and appears from Earth to be completely dark.

"There won't be any annoying moonlight to spoil the fireworks display," said amateur astronomer Jane Houston Jones in a skywatching tips video released by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "This could be the best shower of the year."

This Quadrantid meteor shower sky map shows where to look in the northeastern sky for the shooting star display.



Quadrantid meteors up close

Unlike other notable meteor showers, which have peak observing periods that can last days at a time, the most dramatic view of the Quadrantids lasts a few hours. That, combined with the fact that the meteors pass by during wintertime in the Northern Hemisphere – when cold temperatures and other weather conditions can be obstacles – sometimes makes the first meteor shower of the year difficult to observe.

One piece of advice: Bring blankets and get comfy. You'll want to dress against the cold December night and sit in a comfortable chair if you plan to spend several hours searching for Quadrantid meteors.

"In general, the higher your latitude the better the observing situation," advised Robert Lunsford, operations manager for the American Meteor Society, in a viewing guide. "Unfortunately, in higher latitudes the weather is usually cloudy this time of year. If not cloudy, the bitterly cold temperatures are a constant danger to the exposed observer."

The meteor shower will appear to originate from the northeast corner of the constellation of Bootes, the Herdsman.

If you're not familiar with the Bootes constellation, look instead for the more recognizable constellations of the Big Dipper and Little Dipper. The Quadrantids should appear to emanate from a point between and below the two star patterns.

Astronomers suspect the meteor shower was created by a near-Earth asteroid called 2003 EH1, which could be the debris of a comet that broke apart. The Quadrantids got their name from a now-defunct constellation called the Quadrans Muralis (or "Mural Quadrant"; a quadrant is an astronomical instrument similar to the sextants used for navigation today).

"What makes this year so special is that the moon is new on the night of the peak, so there will be no interference from moonlight," said Bill Cooke, an astronomer with NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, according to the website Spaceweather.com.



Don't miss it: Jan. 4 solar eclipse

That new phase of the moon also sets up another skywatching event – this time, during the day: a partial eclipse of the sun tomorrow (Jan. 4).

Solar eclipses occur when the moon passes between the sun and Earth as seen by observers on the ground. When the moon and sun line up directly, it causes a total solar eclipse. But sometimes the moon obscures only part of the sun's disk, creating a partial solar eclipse.

A partial solar eclipse is what will occur Tuesday. It will be best seen by skywatchers in Sweden, though observers elsewhere in Europe, the northern half of Africa and western Asia should also see the event if the weather allows.

This Jan. 4 solar eclipse skywatching guide shows how observers can catch a glimpse of the partial solar eclipse.

It is extremely important to remember never to look directly at the sun with binoculars or your unaided eye. Doing so can damage your eyes' retinas and cause blindness.

The safest way to view a solar eclipse is to project the sun's image either through a pinhole or through binoculars or a telescope equipped with special filters. At no time should you look through the pinhole or binoculars or telescope at the sun.

The Jan. 4 solar eclipse will be the first of four partial solar eclipses in 2011, with the others occurring in June, July and November, according to NASA's eclipse website. Two total lunar eclipses will also occur, in June and December, NASA officials said.


Read More

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/0103/Meteor-shower-tonight-first-for-2011

Now playing in a sky near you: Winter meteor show

Flaming rocks are hurtling toward the Earth upon the arrival of the annual Geminid meteor shower, one of the biggest of the year.

The peak of the week-long shower will come just before dawn Tuesday, but the shooting stars were visible across the world late this past weekend, says Rebecca Johnson, editor of StarDate magazine, which is published by the McDonald Observatory, the University of Texas research unit near Fort Davis, Texas.

Where skies are clear, the viewing will be best before dawn Tuesday. "It starts to get light an hour before sunrise, so any time before that is going to be a good time to look," Johnson says.

Those who'd rather stay up late than get up early might want to wait until the moon sets around midnight on each night during the shower.

"You can still see meteors when the moon is up, but it will be better when the moon has set," Johnson says.

The peak will hit at 6 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Johnson says.

"If you're brave enough to brave the frigid, arctic cold that's prevailing in most of the Eastern part of the country, that's when you'll see them," says Bill Cooke, an astronomer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Ala.

Meteor showers can be unpredictable in the number of fiery paths sketched across the sky, but the Geminids are among the most consistent. They're expected to generate between 60 to 80 meteors an hour, "about one a minute," Cooke says.

Meteors aren't really falling stars. In the case of the Geminid shower, they're tiny pieces of debris breaking off an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon as it orbits the sun. Although the shower was first seen in the 1860s, the asteroid wasn't discovered until 1983.

The Geminids carry a whiff of mystery. Most well-known meteor showers, such as the Perseids and the Leonids, come from comets, which are "big, dirty snowballs," in Cooke's words.

When comets get near the sun, the heat turns the ice into gas, freeing some of that dirt, which is then pulled into Earth's orbit and falls through the atmosphere. As the debris burns up, it creates the brilliant streaks we see as meteors.

The Geminids come not from a comet but an asteroid, "a big hunk of rock," Cooke says.

Exactly why 3200 Phaethon has so much material trailing behind it to burn up in our atmosphere is unclear.

Even if 3200 Phaethon is a clump of rock bits, which is one kind of asteroid, the Geminids are many hundreds of years old, so those bits should have long since been lost, "and yet (they are) still throwing stuff off. It's a weird meteor shower," Cooke says.

For those who can't make it out Tuesday morning, the meteors will be visible tonight and a day or two after the peak, just not as plentiful.

It's "a great shower that many people never see" because they come during cold weather, Cooke says. "The Perseids get all the press. It's much nicer to be out on a warm August night than to be freezing your rear in December."

Read More

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2010-12-13-Geminids13_ST_N.htm