Spring Break
Leonids meteors shower on Denton
Mark Moser
Issue date: 11/19/08 Section: NEWS
For the past three evenings, skies over much of Denton showcased an annual phenomenon known as the Leonids meteor shower.
An NT researcher said that just before sunrise tended to be the best viewing time, but meteors were visible all night streaming from the constellation Leo.
"I only saw seven fall, but it was worth experiencing," said Stephanie Warren, an astronomy student and electronic news freshman.
The shower reached its peak Nov. 17 and will decline over the next few days.
According to NASA's Web site, the Leonids meteor shower was first witnessed and identified by North Americans as early as 1833. Eyewitness accounts report hundreds of thousands of meteors during the early hours of Nov. 12, 1833.
Shortly thereafter, scientific inquiries were launched to investigate the explanation for the happening, according to NASA. Theories abounded, but Ernst Temple and Horace Tuttle soon discovered a dim comet, now named Temple/Tuttle, and calculated its orbit at exactly 33.17 years.
Using these figures, they were able to accurately predict all future occurrences of the meteor storm, and modern meteor science was born.
Ohad Shemmer of the physics faculty did research during one of the heaviest Leonid displays in 1999 and advised several techniques that could be applied for viewing any meteor shower.
Explaining the ideal viewing time as just before sunrise, he compared the meteor to a diver.
"You don't want the entry angle to be too severe, or else you could skip off the surface," he said.
Therefore, during the early morning the meteors hit the atmosphere most directly. The reason for their colors is because of their chemical compositions, he said.
"These meteors are composed of differing metals such as chromium, iron and nickel."
Additionally, Shemmer said the velocity of entry determines the brightness of the object. As the typical entry velocity of these particles tends to run 30 kilometers per second to 50 kilometers per second, this would correlate to the velocity of the Earth's movement, measured to be approximately 30 kilometers per second.
"It's us hitting them, not the other way around." Shemmer said. "The particles are a mere dust cloud left behind in a comet's trail we just happened to pass through."
Shemmer admitted that he and his colleagues still have much to learn about the composition and nature of these displays. For those who missed the Leonids, the Geminid meteor shower occurs Dec. 12, Shemmer said.
An NT researcher said that just before sunrise tended to be the best viewing time, but meteors were visible all night streaming from the constellation Leo.
"I only saw seven fall, but it was worth experiencing," said Stephanie Warren, an astronomy student and electronic news freshman.
The shower reached its peak Nov. 17 and will decline over the next few days.
According to NASA's Web site, the Leonids meteor shower was first witnessed and identified by North Americans as early as 1833. Eyewitness accounts report hundreds of thousands of meteors during the early hours of Nov. 12, 1833.
Shortly thereafter, scientific inquiries were launched to investigate the explanation for the happening, according to NASA. Theories abounded, but Ernst Temple and Horace Tuttle soon discovered a dim comet, now named Temple/Tuttle, and calculated its orbit at exactly 33.17 years.
Using these figures, they were able to accurately predict all future occurrences of the meteor storm, and modern meteor science was born.
Ohad Shemmer of the physics faculty did research during one of the heaviest Leonid displays in 1999 and advised several techniques that could be applied for viewing any meteor shower.
Explaining the ideal viewing time as just before sunrise, he compared the meteor to a diver.
"You don't want the entry angle to be too severe, or else you could skip off the surface," he said.
Therefore, during the early morning the meteors hit the atmosphere most directly. The reason for their colors is because of their chemical compositions, he said.
"These meteors are composed of differing metals such as chromium, iron and nickel."
Additionally, Shemmer said the velocity of entry determines the brightness of the object. As the typical entry velocity of these particles tends to run 30 kilometers per second to 50 kilometers per second, this would correlate to the velocity of the Earth's movement, measured to be approximately 30 kilometers per second.
"It's us hitting them, not the other way around." Shemmer said. "The particles are a mere dust cloud left behind in a comet's trail we just happened to pass through."
Shemmer admitted that he and his colleagues still have much to learn about the composition and nature of these displays. For those who missed the Leonids, the Geminid meteor shower occurs Dec. 12, Shemmer said.
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