Perseid Meteor Shower

The much awaited annual Perseid meteor shower (19-20 Aug) is here and it’s back with a BANG! ,i.e. With an “outburst” this year. The last time it did something this SPACE-TECH-EULER was back in 2009. So behold, as here comes an excerpt straight out of Greek Folklore with a treat for your senses. This is the Perseid 101, the all you need to know guide, for being part of an event of mythological scale.

Cause

So the punctured faucet from which this shower appears to be raining down is the Perseus constellation named after greek legend Perseus – The Hero, who was the son of the god Zeus and Danae, the mortal. This shower is a tribute to the time they spent together as the lore goes.

Coming to the scientific version, this gift is bestowed upon us by Comet Swift-Tuttle. This comet has a way too oblong path with it’s aphelion farther than pluto and perihelion inside the earth’s orbit. The last perihelion was back in 1992 and it will take another 133 years to be back. So why the ‘annual’ shower? Well it’s because of our Sun. As the comet nears our sun, the frozen members of “Swift-Tuttle” evaporate leaving behind a dense trail. So every year our Earth’s atmosphere glides through this trail creating a spectacular array of streaks in the night sky.

Outburst? But Why?

The track of trailing dust and debris it leaves behind experiences a strong gravitational pull of the giants of our solar system (mainly Jupiter). So this time Jupiter shifted the trail towards us, so deeper into this cosmic rubble we go this time, leading to a crowded streak show ( not as crowded as “Rajiv Chowk” ). Thereby creating an outburst with 150 plus sightings per hour nearly double the normal perseid shower.

When and How to Watch?

So according to NASA you can catch Earth-grazers in the evening but that’s some tough job. So let’s stick to spotting and catching the perseids. Light is the first thing you need to get away from, yes! as far as possible, especially from city lights, they’re the major source of light pollution and believe me you don’t wanna get anywhere near that. But the moonlight can also play a spoilsport, although it’s a waxing gibbous, so wait till the midnight. Let your eyes get used to the dark, and the eyes could take as long as 40 min to adjust, but it’s worth when you wanna melt into the Shower. The visibility graph would be on a rising curve after 2 in the night and would have a maxima after moonset, the predawn period. Most importantly, the telescope that you would use will matter the most as it will decide how less will you be able to capture and this is because you don’t need one, it’s only going to limit the field of view. Your eyes are the best when it comes to spotting the Perseids. So what are you waiting for, get a chair/mattress, get high, well not literally, I mean altitude and latitude-wise, some light night snacks, hot chocolate, a light quilt and don’t forget to bring your personal pair of HD 576 Mega Pixel eyes.

And stay tuned for the upcoming amazing SPACE-TECH-EULER-ness.

P.S. It’s true, the resolution of your eyes is 576 MP (Go google it).