REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — Earth may experience rain meteor it wasn’t until this December when our planet entered the debris flow left by a near-Earth comet around the Sun. These meteors will appear to be streaming from the direction of the star Lambda-Sculptoris, hence the potential name meteor Rain these are “Lambda-Sculptorids”.
The potential progenitor of the new meteor shower is Comet 46P/Wirtanen, which was discovered in 1948 and orbits the sun every 5.4 years. That’s much faster than other comets, such as Halley’s Comet.
A team of scientists led by Observatoire de Paris astronomer Jeremie Vaubaillon wants to answer the question of why Earth has never experienced a meteor shower caused by debris from Comet 46P/Wirtanen before. What they discovered was that such an event would occur on Tuesday (12/12/2023).
“The results show a possible expected meeting on December 12, 2023, between 08.00 and 12.30 UT. “The level of rain activity is highly uncertain due to the absence of previous rain reports,” they wrote in a paper discussing their results that was published in the open source arXiv repository and will be published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, reported SpaceMonday (11/12/2023).
“Overall, the most optimal observations on the forecast day will be achieved from Eastern Australia, New Zealand and Oceania.”
Some meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through clouds of debris left by comets as they move closer to the Sun. When radiation from our star heats it, the material inside the comet turns into gas through a process called sublimation.
As this gas erupts from the icy outer shell and out of the comet, it blows free debris that forms the numerous tails and distinctive auras, or “comas,” of these icy cosmic bodies.
This debris can also settle in the stream around the sun that the Earth then passes through at about the same time each year during our 365.3 day journey around our star.
When that happens, fragments of debris enter the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 162,000 miles per hour (260,731 kph) or about 100 times faster than the top speed of a Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jet.
As they do, these fragments burn high above the Earth, creating patches of light and the larger pebble-sized fragments explode as bright balls of fire. This speed depends on a number of variables, including the angle at which the fragment enters the Earth’s atmosphere.
2023-12-11 10:29:38
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