They say that when you see a shooting star in the sky, you should make a wish as quickly as possible, which will certainly come true. But is this really so? What do astrologers and psychics say about this phenomenon? When is the time for the most active star shower of the year? History, facts and records of the August meteor shower, which is called the Perseids.
The main starfall of summer 2017
You can find out what date the meteor shower begins in August by looking at the astrological calendar. According to the calendar, the so-called Perseid shower traditionally falls between July 17 and August 24. Moreover, one of the August nights in the range from the 12th to the 17th becomes the peak activity of the meteorite flow. The incredibly beautiful spectacle of a trail of falling stars consisting of ice and dust always arouses interest not only among astrologers, but also among ordinary people.
The name Perseids comes from the constellation from whose location the “burning stars” begin their journey. This is the constellation Perseus. Eastern horizon – a starting point August star shower, which begins as dusk sets in (approximately from 22:00). The stream of stellar particles closer to midnight is visible from almost anywhere on the planet. Closer to the morning, the fall of meteorites becomes noticeable throughout the sky, although mainly in the northern hemisphere.
In Russia, the number of falling meteors visible to the eye is approximately one meteor per minute. But the speed of falling stellar particles, according to scientific research, is about 200 thousand kilometers per second.
A little history of observations
A similar phenomenon occurs during the passage of the Earth through the debris and dust of comet Swift-Tuttle, which flies near our planet once every 135 years. Its remains, wandering in space, annually entering the Earth’s atmosphere, heat up and burn, leaving behind luminous streaks, which form the so-called “meteor shower.” The activity of the Perseids is variable and depends on the location of the constellation Perseus relative to the Earth. Based on this, in one year the number of falling meteors can be within fifty per hour, and in another it can reach up to five hundred.
Table: All star falls of 2017
Astrologers and psychics about summer starfall
The fairly strong energy of meteorite showers, according to astrologers, can harm a person who is unable to control his emotions. During the period when starfall begins, they recommend monitoring your actions, emotions, words and even thoughts. After all, negativity, expressed in any of the above forms, can return to the person from whom it originally came and significantly ruin his life. The “boomerang effect” is the most appropriate comparison here.
According to psychics, in areas where meteor showers are visible, this is an ideal period for performing a number of ritual rituals. In particular these are:
- cleansing from negativity,
- removing all kinds of curses,
- change negative attitudes along the family line.
But the extremely strong energy of the Perseid meteorite stream requires caution and attentiveness in your actions, which include the use of a variety of magical rituals. Although ideally, from an esoteric point of view, the most “helpful” are those falling stars that a person sees spontaneously.
Features of observing star rain
The Perseus meteors are bright enough and you don’t need any optical instruments with an astronomical bias to see them. Ideally, meteor showers are best observed in villages and towns with a minimum amount of street lighting. In this case, it is possible to see even the smallest falling particles with barely noticeable lighting.
The number of falling meteorites can reach 150 units per hour (2-3 meteors per minute). The duration of the glow of falling particles is several seconds. The speed of falling meteorites, as mentioned above, is approximately 200 thousand kilometers per second. The Perseids "astronomical show" requires, first of all, patience from people who want to see the meteor shower. After all, not everyone would agree to spend the whole night under open air, observing the flares that appear from time to time in celestial space.
It is noteworthy that the star showers, the list of which is given in the table above, are repeated from year to year. This is due to the fact that the earth’s orbit and the orbit of meteorite streams (remnants of comet tails) are intersected in a strictly defined area, due to the fact that each time they pass along the same cosmic route. And if it happens that for some reason it was not possible to observe the trail of falling stars in 2017, then all this can be made up for in the new year 2018.
In August, the powerful Perseid meteor shower passes over the Earth. It will reach its peak between August 11 and August 13, and can be seen from almost any corner of our planet. “360” found out what makes this meteor shower unique and how to observe it correctly.
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What is the Perseid shower?
The name Perseids comes from the constellation Perseus, from which, if you look closely, these “shooting stars” fly out. The culprit of the meteor shower is the large comet Swift-Tuttle. Although the phenomenon is called a “starfall”, in reality no stars will fly by, we're talking about about the comet's tiny pea-sized dust particles. They fly to the Earth and burn up in the layers of the atmosphere, and the inhabitants of the planet receive a beautiful sight in the form of fiery rain. At first it “spills” with the greatest force, then gradually weakens.
The Earth passes through meteor showers quite often - several times a year, but the upcoming meteor shower will be special. According to forecasts by the International Meteor Organization, at least 100 meteors per hour will fly past the planet in the coming days.
“This time has been a good year for observing the Perseids. Now it’s the new moon, which means burning particles will be more clearly visible in the sky,” Georgy Goncharov, leading researcher at the Main Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explained to 360.
Is starfall dangerous for the Earth?
Despite the impressive spectacle, this phenomenon can hardly pose a serious danger to our planet - meteor particles are too small to reach the Earth's surface before their complete combustion. In space, the situation is different - sometimes a meteor shower can hit an artificial satellite.
“Since the comet disintegrates unevenly, sometimes large objects like the one that fell in Chelyabinsk can be caught in the meteor shower. In principle, during meteor showers, the likelihood of large meteorites falling to Earth increases, but this does not happen every day,” Goncharov said.
Astronomer and junior researcher at the Pulkovo Observatory Maria Borukha disagreed with him: “It was an unrelated phenomenon. Chelyabinsk meteorite before that it collided with another cosmic body. In addition, the Chelyabinsk meteorite is not a piece of a comet. It was not an icy body, but a solid one.”
In any case, both experts agreed that those who want to observe the cosmic phenomenon should not look for any shelter, but should simply enjoy its beauty.
Where is the best place to watch a starfall?
The worst option is to look at the stars in large cities, which greatly illuminate the sky. In them you will be deprived of almost all chances to see the beauty of the meteor shower. At best, you will be able to see one or two meteors per night, so this is not a very good idea, astronomers explained.
The rule here is simple - the darker the better. Therefore, it is advisable to move away from cities and any settlements although 20-30 kilometers away, since even an illuminated horizon can ruin everything. In addition, it is a mistake to believe that you need a telescope to observe starfalls. Not only will it not help, but it will also interfere with you - meteors fall over a wide area, while the telescope focuses on small area starry sky. What you should take with you is only a soft bedding and warm clothes to make long observation comfortable.
“I've tested this myself and can assure you that if you do it right, you're practically guaranteed one meteor every few seconds. Just imagine: you don’t have to wait for hours for something to happen, it actually happens before your eyes,” Goncharov shared.
If for some reason you are unable to watch the Perseid meteor shower, this fall you will have the chance to see an equally impressive spectacle - a parade of planets. It will be visible from Earth in the evenings from October 11 to 14. True, it is best seen from equatorial countries like Indonesia or Thailand. There, in one part of the sky, you can observe the Moon and five planets at once: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
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Imagine driving through an intersection on a windy day and a dump truck full of sand has just rushed through. A dust trail trails behind it, and many grains of sand will fall into your windshield. Now let’s transfer this picture into space: instead of a dump truck there will be a comet, instead of an intersection there will be an intersection of orbits, instead of wind there will be sunlight, and instead of a windshield there will be the earth’s atmosphere.
Where do the Perseids come from?
The meteor shower particles are produced by comet Swift-Tuttle. Moving along a highly elongated orbit, it makes one revolution around the Sun every 133 years. When approaching a star, its core partially evaporates, and gases carry away grains of sand and pebbles - from them a trail is formed behind the comet.
Thousands of years of pressure solar radiation blurs it in width and stretches it along the orbit. The width of the Perseid meteor shower exceeds 40 million km, and the Earth crosses it for more than a month, moving around the Sun at a speed of 30 km/s. However, the densest part of the flow is noticeably narrower - 1.3 million km, and we cross it in about 12 hours.
Perseid particles meet the Earth at a speed of 53 km/s. They would cover the distance from Moscow to Yekaterinburg in half a minute. A millimeter-sized grain of sand at such a speed has the energy of a record-breaking hammer blow or explosion of 1 gram of TNT. It could make a significant hole in the hull of a spaceship.
However, the concentration of particles is extremely low. For one of these to get into the ISS, one would have to wait about ten years in the densest, central part of the flow. So meteoroids, despite their speed and impressive appearance when burning up in the sky, pose a much lesser threat to flights than man-made orbital space debris.
This year, conditions for observing the Perseids are especially favorable. Firstly, the maximum activity occurs during the period when it is night in Europe and Russia. Secondly, on August 11 there will be a new moon, which means that moonlight will not interfere with observations.
The International Meteor Organization (IMO) forecasts Perseid activity at 110 meteors per hour, with two additional bursts of activity possible (but not guaranteed) on the night of maximum, presumably around 11:00 pm and 5:30 am Moscow time. They are associated with condensations of meteoric particles that were noticed in past years.
How to look at meteors
No active thread required to monitor complex training and equipment: meteors are visible to the naked eye. You just need to know when and where to look, and get comfortable.
The Perseid radiant, a small area in the sky that, due to the effect of perspective, appears to be the source of meteors from a single shower, is located, as its name suggests, in the constellation Perseus. At the beginning of the night, the constellation is low above the eastern horizon, the meteors of the shower are rarely visible, but they are long, crossing the entire sky.
In the middle of the night, Perseus rises and moves south, and there are more meteors. Best time for observations of the Perseids - at three to four o'clock in the morning, and in the southern regions - until five in the morning. It is not worth looking directly into the radiant, since there are not very many meteors there and they are short. It is better to monitor the area of the sky slightly away from the radiant - at the zenith, in the south and southwest.
No less interesting are photographic observations of meteors. For this you need digital camera with wide angle lens and remote control(from a remote control or computer), shooting with a shutter speed of at least 30 seconds. The camera is placed on a tripod or simply placed on flat surface, aiming at the zenith. Long exposure shots are then taken one after another.
Catching a beautiful meteor typically requires images with a total exposure time of two to three hours—much longer than visual observations. Firstly, even wide-angle lenses have a smaller field of view than a person’s, and secondly, the camera cannot turn its gaze towards a meteor that appears at the edge of the field of view. The chances increase if you install several cameras at once, pointing them at different areas sky, or use a fisheye lens.
(Total 15 photos)
1. A meteor streaks past the stars in the night sky above. Like most meteor showers, the Perseids are formed by the remnants of a comet's tail. (REUTERS)
2. Meteor shower in the night sky over Glastonbury. Fragments of rock ejected from the nucleus of this comet, entering the Earth's atmosphere, burn up in it, flaring up like stars. This phenomenon can be observed from anywhere on the planet, but in the northern hemisphere it is brighter. (ANTHONY SPENCER/CATERS)
3. Perseids in the night sky over Somerset. (STEVEN SPRAGGON/CATERS)
4. Photographer Mark Humpage took more than 3,000 pictures of the sky in hopes of capturing the spectacle, but ended up with this star trail. The image was made from several images of the sky that he took over 6.5 hours. Despite pointing his camera at the sky from 10pm to 4:30am with 15-second exposures, Mark only managed to capture one meteor (above left), and it wasn't a Perseid. The ghostly figure of Mark can be seen in the garden - the photographer is sitting on five chairs. (MARK HUMPAGE / APEX)
5. Photographer Andy Keane climbed a hill in Powys, Wales to take this photo. “I climbed the hill between 10:45 pm and 3:00 am, armed only with a camera and a flask of coffee. We didn't have to wait long. A few minutes before the sun set and darkness fell, the night sky lit up with bright meteors rushing past me and colliding with the Earth's atmosphere. In an hour I counted about 40. It was an amazing sight, and I will never forget it.” (NATIONAL NEWS & PICTURES)
6. A meteor streaks through the night sky over the Lieberg hill in Grossmoogl, 30 km north of Vienna. (AP)
7. In Europe, the Perseids were called “Tears of St. Lawrence”, since the St. Lawrence Festival, which takes place in Italy, falls on the most active period of meteor shower - August 10. Photo: meteor over Mount Matka near Skopje, Macedonia. (EPA)
8. A meteor flies in the night sky over the El Torcal nature reserve in the southern Spanish town of Antequera, near Malaga. (REUTERS)
9. Meteor over Nanning, China. (KPA / ZUMA / REX FEATURES)
10. It is officially believed that the discoverer of the annual Perseid meteor shower is the Belgian Adolphe Ketele, who reported this spectacle in August 1835. In the photo: another photo of the meteor over Nunning. (KPA / ZUMA / REX FEATURES)
Here come the days of August, last days summer. The month of July was pleased with the eclipse, August will delight with the “shower of stars” - this is a unique and beautiful sight. On the night of Sunday, August 12, to Monday, August 13, the brightest meteor shower, which forms from the side of the constellation Perseus, will reach its maximum. According to astronomers at the Moscow Planetarium, up to a hundred “stars” will burn out in the sky per hour. Therefore, you should not miss it. This phenomenon will be especially visible outside the city, without city color.
The Perseids are a meteor shower that appears in July-August every year. It is named so because flying "stars" appear in the area of the constellation Perseus. This particular starfall is considered one of the most spectacular and dynamic.
In this article, we will answer your questions: Where, when and what time to watch “Star Rain” in August 2018?
The 2018 Perseid meteor shower will peak on August 12-13. On this day, the number of falling “stars” per hour will approach 60. In general, stellar It is raining, starting from July 17 and ending on August 24.
At the end of July there are several meteors per hour. Every day the number of falling “stars” increases. And after reaching the peak on August 12-13, it decreases. Closer to the 20th, only 1-2 meteors per hour remain. The name of this phenomenon is deceptive and misleads some people. No, the stars do not fall down.
Astronomers call a meteor shower a meteor shower, and it is created by numerous meteors. These are fragments of comets that enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up in it, while on their way down they glow like stars.
Where can you watch the starfall?
WHAT TIME WILL THE AUGUST STARFAULT PEAK WILL BE:
The peak of the starfall occurs at 18:00 Moscow time. Sunday August 12, 2018. The active phase will also last throughout the night from August 12 to 13.
Since for residents of the central part of Russia the starfall will reach its maximum during daylight hours (August 12, 2018, sunset time in Moscow is 20:12 Moscow time), it is best to start observing the celestial phenomenon immediately after sunset, simultaneously with the onset of twilight.
When will such a thing happen again?
The Perseid shower is formed when the Earth passes through a plume of dust particles that were released by Comet Swift-Tuttle. These tiny particles, burning in the earth's atmosphere, create the effect of star rain. The orbits of the Earth and the stream invariably intersect each other annually between July 17 and August 24. Meteor shower reaches its maximum on the nights from 11 to 13 August.
This meteor shower has been known to mankind for about two thousand years, but its activity is inconsistent from year to year. For example, in August 1993 in central Europe The burning of 200 to 500 meteors per hour was observed. The fact is that the activity of the Perseids decreases as the distance between the comet and the Earth increases. The last bursts of stream activity occurred in the summers of 2004 and 2009. According to calculations by specialists from the Moscow Planetarium, the next major “star shower” awaits us in 2028.
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