Do you believe that you can make a wish when you see a shooting star? Then you’re in luck, because this week you can spot around 65 shooting stars per hour in Apeldoorn. This is what Marc van der Sluys, an astronomy lecturer at Utrecht University and creator of the site, tells us hemel.waarnemen.com.
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On the night of Thursday 14 to Friday 15 December 2023, the Geminids meteor shower can be clearly seen. This is the second largest annual meteor shower in the sky. With the naked eye you can see about 65 shooting stars per hour. It is best to see them from a dark place, such as Matenhoeve.
The Geminids
Marc explains that the Geminids are named after the constellation Gemini, where the meteors appear to come from. The meteor shower consists of debris left behind by the asteroid Phaethon. Because the Earth moves through the debris cloud in its orbit around the sun, we see this meteor shower every year around the same date. The Geminids are characterized by their large numbers, their brightness, their yellowish color and the short trails they leave behind. They reach speeds of approximately 125,000 kilometers per hour.
Most stars
Marc: “The best time to observe the meteors is around 1 a.m. at night. The moon is 5 percent illuminated and below the horizon. As a result, the conditions are reasonably favorable this year. Around 9 p.m. you can see about 30 to 40 per hour if you look east. Around 1 a.m. you can see up to 55 to 75 shooting stars per hour.”
What is a shooting star?
Shooting stars are flashes of light that occasionally appear in the starry sky. However, the flashes have nothing to do with stars. They are caused by space debris, often no larger than a grain of sand. That debris ends up in the Earth’s atmosphere approximately 100 kilometers above our heads. Due to the high speeds, the air at the front of such a grit particle is compressed, heated and made to glow. We see that as a flash.
Bron: Hemel.waarnemen.com
2023-12-11 14:11:35
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