TORONTO –
Space lovers could enjoy Monday, as the Tau Herculide meteor shower is expected to illuminate the sky – depending on the speed and distance of the meteoroids.
According to NASA, the Earth will pass through traces of debris left by a broken comet that crashed in 1995.
If these fragments of comet 73P / Schwassmann-Washmann (SW3) were ejected at speeds twice as high as normal, viewers can expect a radiant show.
“It would be a really spectacular meteor storm, people even quote up to 1,000, meteors that would be visible per hour,” astrophysicist and coordinator of the Institute for Exoplanetary Research at the Université de Montréal, Natalie Wellett, told CTVNews.ca in a telephone interview. Friday.
By comparison, typical rain brings an average of one meteor every minute, approximately 60 per hour, Outtlete said. However, the speed and direction of the fragments will ultimately decide how much spectacle viewers will receive.
“The problem is that since this is the first time we’ve been through this field of debris, it may be that we’re actually going to go right in front of it and miss most of the really good big pieces,” she said.
The head of NASA’s Meteorological Environment Service, Bill Cook, described the soul as an all-or-nothing event.
“If the SW3 debris was moving at more than 220 miles per hour (354 kilometers per hour) when it separated from the comet, we could see a nice meteor shower. If the debris had a slower rate of release, then nothing will reach Earth and there will be no meteors from this comet, “Cook said in a post on the NASA blog.
While the actual speed of the Tau Herculid shower will be slow, reaching a speed of only 16 kilometers per second (10 miles per second), the potential for a spectacle is still there, as the actual size of the meteroid’s mass distribution is unknown, according to the International Meteor organization.
In addition, the current new moon will allow better optics during the shower.
“Usually, if you have a full moon during a meteor shower, it’s not so good because the moon drowns out all the shooting stars,” Wellett said.
“Since we have a new moon, we’re actually going to have a pretty dark sky, so that’s good news.”
SW3 was discovered in 1930 by German observers Arnold Schwassmann and Arno Arthur Wahman. The comet was weak for most of its years until 1995, when it became 600 times brighter after it crashed and traced debris.
According to NASA, spectators in North America can watch for a shower at 1 am for those on the East Coast and at 10 pm for those on the West Coast.
Ouellette’s advice to observers is to settle in a dark area and arrive early to allow your eyes to adjust to the darkness.
“It takes your eyes about 20 minutes to get used to the dark sky, so be patient and whatever you do, don’t look at your phone because you will spoil your eyes for the next 20 minutes if you do,” she said.
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