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Don't forget the Perseids

Started by Ed, August 12, 2007, 07:15:49 AM

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Ed

Tonight and for the next couple of nights is the height of the Perseids meteor shower, which happens every year as debris from a passing comet hits our atmos at about 130,000 miles per hour. So, basically, if one makes it as far as your back garden, don't try to catch it :afro:

It's supposed to be quite a light show. I vaguely remember seeing it once, by a fluke of timing, but most years I either forget or the sky is obscured by cloud.

Link: http://stardate.org/nightsky/meteors/
Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

Geoff_N

Have you forgotten my story, Gravity's Tears already, Ed?  ;)

For the others it was a short dark tale of a couple driving in Canada when the Perseid shower decides to be more active than usual and  stone pellets (rather than the dust particles they normally are) reaches the ground with the speed of bullets.

It's been drafted n+1 times and has been sitting in a slush pile at Asimov magazine since April.

Cheers

Geoff

Ed

No, I hadn't forgotten, Geoff - I thought of it while I was posting this and wondered if your story was set during the Perseids or the Leonids. I hope Azimov's picks it up. That's a good publishing credit. :smiley:
Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

Geoff_N

Definitely was the Perseids, I think...


I gave Cafe Doom a plug in today's blog in relation to them.

Geoff_N

#4
Hooray! The clouds cleared. So at 1:30 am I unfolded a sun-lounger onto my back lawn, put on a coat, and lay there waiting. I saw a satellite go over and a couple of airplanes and then a flash as a meteor burnt through the sky. I came in at 2am cos I was getting chilly and sleepy, but I saw around 20 - just less than one a minute. It brought back fond memories. I once lay on the slopes of Mount Olympus in Greece, with Delphi at the bottom of the slope and 20 or so other students in their sleeping bags. We didn't know about the Perseids - we were just camping out in the amazingly clear starry night. Then the shower of shooting stars began - quite unforgettable.

Ed

Cool :afro: Couldn't believe it when I saw a clear sky last night. Like you, I saw a couple of satellites and planes, but I probably saw about five or six meteorites in the half hour I watched. Most were brief flashes, but one streaked right across the sky with a long bright tail. I was too sleepy to set up outside, so I just flipped open a Velux window upstairs and poked my head out of that :smiley:

Thanks for the plug, BTW :afro:
Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something.  The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

canadian

Doug & I were fortunate enough to catch glimmers of burning space dust over the course of three nights. The skies over a Haliburton night are quite dark (as long as we remember to turn off the workroom light inside the house).

Not sure why it's called a 'meteor shower', though. From our vantage point, it seemed more like 'meteor dribbles'. :)  We saw a few with long tails and have nice cricks in our necks now.
If people stand in a circle long enough, they will eventually begin to dance. -- George Carlin