Infrared image of comet SW3, taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope in 2006. The comet has been decaying since 1995, providing possible conditions for meteor showers on Monday night. (NASA, JPL, Caltech)
Estimated reading time: 4-5 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY – Patience can pay off for star watchers on Monday night, as a new meteor shower could appear with the potential to illuminate the sky in a dramatic way.
Astronomers suspect that the material from small comet SW3 could cause a significant meteor shower called the Tau Herculids, which will reach its peak around 11pm on Monday, according to space.com.
Space.com columnist Joe Rao points out that the rain may have the intensity of heavier annual meteor showers. It is known that these rains produce up to one hundred meteors per hour, as stated in the summary of meteor showers for 2022 from the same space blog.
As an added bonus, there is little chance that the Tau Herculians can climb to a larger meteor burst or storm, where thousands of meteors per hour can be seen pouring out of the night sky, Rao explains in his article.
However, all models and forecasts may fail and the night sky may remain dark from Monday night to Tuesday morning. It all depends on the time of the Earth’s orbits and comet SW3.
Patrick Wiggins, a local astronomer and NASA / JPL ambassador for the Utah Solar System, said that if the Tau Herculids reached their full potential, the resulting display would be among the most powerful meteor storms in history. Rao compared the best case scenario to Leonid’s meteors 20 years ago.
However, no one can say for sure what will happen. A recent NASA blog post is more conservative, not even showing a storm as an opportunity.
Wiggins called the storm potential a “big if.” However, this will not dissuade him from watching.
“The only thing for sure is that I will watch,” he said.
Possibility for a shower
Meteor showers occur when the Earth encounters a swarm of debris left by a comet.
In an article in the magazine for the International Meteorological Organization for the Soul Tau Herculidi in 2022, Rao wrote that by 23:00 on a mountainous Monday, the Earth will intersect with the orbit of SW3 just before the comet. This seems to have made the possibility of any meteor activity in 2022 non-existent.
However, with more modeling, Rao found that it was possible for the SW3 debris cloud to travel in front of the comet, enough to produce a shower. Two other studies support his findings, he wrote.
Moreover, Rao points to a similar comet disintegration in the early 1800s that led to the Andromeda meteor storms of 1872 and 1885. Rao’s document suggests that the similarities between the two comets may support the forecast for Tau Herculid’s storm. .
Watching notes
If you plan to watch, Rao offers the following normal protocol for watching meteor showers: warm clothes and a hot drink to combat chills, a reclining chair to support your neck, and a red flashlight to support your night vision.
Meteor names are usually formed after the point in the sky from which meteors radiate, usually a constellation. When they were discovered in 1930, the Tau Herculians were expected to emit from the constellation Hercules, Rao’s document said.
Today, the radiant will be closer to the constellation Bootes. To find this constellation, find the Ursa Major handle and look at the first bright star you see: Arcturus, the brightest star in Bootes.
You don’t have to look directly at the radiant to see meteors in the shower. Science writer and former director of the Hansen Planetarium Mark Litmann has written a book about the Great Leonid Meteor Storms of the 19th century, in anticipation of the rains of 1998 and 1999, entitled Heaven on Fire. In this book, he explains that looking away from the shower beam will actually allow you to see longer tails.
However, if a storm occurs and thousands of meteors fall, looking directly at the radiant will create the illusion of flying through space, like the federation’s Star Trek spacecraft, Litman said.
Rao warns that as the expected meteors will catch up with the Earth on Monday night, they will also look weaker, making the dark sky imperative. He added that a possible storm would be “short-lived; not more than a few hours’.
And of course, time is the most important factor for any astronomical event.
“Look at the sky,” Wiggins said, borrowing from an old science fiction proverb. “Everywhere. Keep looking. Keep looking at the sky.”
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Ryan Boyce is a lover of science and history. His first writing project was a compilation of the history of space exploration on his teacher’s computer in 3rd grade, and he hasn’t stopped writing since.
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