There are more and more falling stars in the sky.
A new meteor shower has appeared in the sky. The show lasted only two hours, but every minute two shooting stars flashed. Scientists predicted this phenomenon in advance, which makes it even more amazing. But how do they do this, where do shooting stars come from, and why are there more and more of them in the sky? Maybe they are artificial? No, and even more interesting.
ORDER IN CHAOS.
When a shooting star flies across the sky, where did it come from? Well, you know: pebbles and dust particles fly in space, one collided with the Earth’s atmosphere and burned up, and that’s what we see. Even a speck of dust produces a very bright shooting star. The pebble will light up the whole sky. For a meteorite to fall, serious masses are needed, hundreds of grams and kilograms (but an insignificant part will reach the ground).
But the truth is that nothing just flies in space. Every shooting star, every grain and grain of sand has its own orbit, like a big planet. And these orbits are usually grouped. Yes, astronomers say that these meteors are from the stream, and these are sporadic, that is, random. But they know that in fact the so-called random meteors are also from some kind of stream. But very weak. Or asleep, old, exhausted. The apparent chaos of falling stars is actually clearly organized.
What is a meteor shower?
Meteors often appear to come from a single point in the sky (called the radiant). This is a meteor shower. In fact, all these meteors fly in parallel, and their convergence to one point is an illusion, like rails that “converge at the horizon.” The meteors of the stream have one orbit for all, and the radiant is the place where the orbit of the stream and the orbit of the Earth intersect. The stream lasts for several days (then the Earth will simply move away from the intersection of the orbits) and repeats annually. The famous August meteor shower is the Perseid shower, because the meteors seem to fly out from the constellation Perseus.
FRAGILE ENTITIES.
But why are meteors organized into showers? To answer this question, we need to find out where all this dust and grains of sand come from.
Space, generally speaking, is clean. The gravity of the planets has already cleared space of debris. Billions of years ago, everything fell on Earth in astronomical quantities. The young solar system was full of “construction debris.” But those times are long gone.
However, there are comets in the solar system. These are fragile bodies of stones and ice. It is believed that an infinite number of comets live in the so-called Oort cloud, very far away (even Voyagers did not fly there). The Sun’s gravity pulls one or two out of there from time to time. And they end up with us. And they disintegrate because the ice evaporates from the heat of the sun. Often evaporates explosively. Then comets eject material. Finally, the comet dissolves completely. What remains of her? Its pieces that continue to fly in the same orbit. When the orbits of the Earth and the former comet intersect, we get a stream.
It is extremely rare that asteroids also form streams. Rarely – because asteroids are stronger and don’t just fall apart.
SHOW IN THE SOUTH SKY.
A long time ago, in 1974, Comet Wirtanen appeared in the sky. And then there was a powerful release of substance from it. Scientists looked at the ejecta’s orbit and realized that in December 2023 this substance would collide with the Earth.
And so we waited all these years. Are the calculations accurate? Things happen. They predict a flow, but there is none. The opposite situation: we didn’t wait, we didn’t think, but shooting stars sparkled in the sky. It is unclear where they came from. Complex world, complex science.
But it was not in vain that they waited and remembered. On December 12, at 12-30 Moscow time, it began. First we saw the radars. They send out pulses that bounce off meteors. Then – with the eyes. At least 120 meteors flew per hour. That is two meteors per minute! And two hours later, at 14:40 Moscow time, it suddenly cut off.
All this was seen only in the Southern Hemisphere. We had no chance also because it was day. The shooting stars seemed to be coming from the constellation Sculptor. It’s a southern constellation, so you’ve probably never heard of it. The names of the southern constellations were given in the 18th century, and these names are not as mythological as the northern ones that are familiar to us. The star Lambda Sculptor was located closest to the radiant, so the stream, according to the rules, was called the Lambda Sculptoridae. It’s not very euphonious, but that’s what it is.
The team that did the calculations and observed this is already the second newly opened stream. In 2021, these astronomers predicted and observed a shower from Comet Finlay. And also in the Southern Hemisphere.
But science is often wrong. Comet Nishimura shone in the sky all summer. They suspected that it was she who gave birth to the weak stream of Sigma Hydrides (sigma is the number of the nearest star, Hydrides is because the constellation Hydra). And if the parent body, a comet, flies nearby, the usually stunted stream should rain down heavily. The events were expected on December 9-12. But they didn’t wait. What’s happened? Or the comet and the stream are not connected in any way. Or the comet ejected little material. Mystery.
THE SKY IS IN DIAMONDS.
Humanity grew up under the light of grandiose comets. The descriptions of ancient chronicles are amazing. Tails all over the sky! She herself is terrifying, hairy, and it seems like there are swords and daggers in her head, or horsemen are galloping along her tail. People were afraid, and for good reason.
And for half a century, and even longer, there have been no such comets. So I wrote that Comet Nishimura “shone” this summer. She didn’t shine. It was barely visible through binoculars. Those five rubles were big. And the current ones are three rubles and small.
Where did you go? Ask for something simpler. Look, they don’t fly out of the Oort cloud. It doesn’t seem like it should be depleted. There are probably some natural cycles.
But something is changing right before our eyes. There are noticeably more mediocre comets, and we are happy about each one. And this means those great comets of antiquity will return. With them come meteor showers.
It will be like this: before going to bed, you go out under the clear sky to breathe, and they fly. Just have time to make wishes. Meteorites will also fall. How big? How dangerous? Who knows? But it will be beautiful, fun and interesting.
You can play radar and hear meteors using simple means. Moreover, the weather is not very good, and it will not be possible to observe with the naked eye. Take a regular FM receiver and tune in to an empty frequency. Sooner or later, a voice or music will flash among the noise. It was a large meteor passing by. The distant station bounced off his trail and you heard it for a moment. In practice, it is better to have a powerful, or even outdoor, antenna. But when the currents are strong, you will catch it this way. Thus, the source of the signal in your “locator” becomes a distant station, and you yourself do not need to emit anything.
