JAKARTA, iNews.id – There are various celestial phenomena that will occur throughout February 2021. One of them is meteor Rain α-Centaurid or Alpha Centaurid.
Rain meteor This has actually been active since January 28 to February 21 with the peak point of the meteor shower occurring on February 8, 2021. What is this natural phenomenon like?
Quoted from In The Sky, Sunday (7/2/2021) at its peak, the α Centaurid meteor shower is estimated to produce a nominal rate of about 6 meteors per hour (ZHR). However, the hourly numbers in this peak period are calculated on the assumption that the sky is completely dark and the beam is directly overhead.
In practice, real observational vision would not fulfill this ideal. The number of meteors that may be seen is lower than this, and can be estimated using the ZHR formula.
If observed from the Jakarta sky, this meteor shower will not be visible before around 9:50 p.m. every night, when the point of its radiance rises above the eastern horizon. Then it will remain active until dawn around 05:34.
The luminous point peaks high in the sky, after dawn or around 05.00 WIB – so this metero rain will likely produce its best appearance just before dawn, when the radiance point is highest.
Meteor showers appear when Earth passes through a debris flow that was left after comets and asteroids. Over time, the pieces of debris, such as sand in this flow, distribute themselves along the orbits of the parent object around the solar system.
Editor: Dani Dahwilani
