* Astronomy

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RE: Meteor showers

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Title: The prediction of meteor showers from all potential parent comets
Author: Lubos Neslusan, Maria Hajdukova, Dusan Tomko, Zuzana Kanuchova, Marian Jakubik

The objectives of this project are to predict new meteor showers associated with as many as possible known periodic comets and to find a generic relationship of some already known showers with these comets. For a potential parent comet, we model a theoretical stream at the moment of its perihelion passage in a far past, and follow its dynamical evolution until the present. Subsequently, we analyse the orbital characteristics of the parts of the stream that approach the Earth's orbit. Modelled orbits of the stream particles are compared with the orbits of actual photographic, video, and radar meteors from several catalogues. The whole procedure is repeated for several past perihelion passages of the parent comet. To keep our description compact but detailed, we usually present only either a single or a few parent comets with their associated showers in one paper. Here, an overview of the results from the modelling of the meteor-shower complexes of more than ten parent bodies will be presented. This enables their diversities to be shown. Some parent bodies may associate meteor showers which exhibit a symmetry of their radiant areas with respect to the ecliptic (ecliptical, toroidal, or showers of an ecliptic-toroidal structure), and there are showers which have no counterpart with a similar ecliptical longitude on the opposite hemisphere. However, symmetry of the radiant areas of the pair filaments with respect to the Earth's apex is visible in almost all the complexes which we examined.

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How to See the Best Meteor Showers of the Year: Tools, Tips and 'Save the Dates'

Whether you're watching from a downtown area or the dark countryside, here are some tips to help you enjoy these celestial shows of shooting stars. Those streaks of light are really caused by tiny specks of comet-stuff hitting Earth's atmosphere at very high speed and disintegrating in flashes of light.
First a word about the moon - it is not the meteor watcher's friend. Light reflecting off a bright moon can be just as detrimental to good meteor viewing as those bright lights of the big city. There is nothing you can do except howl at the moon, so you'll have to put up with it or wait until the next favourable shower.
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Meteor count

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2010 Major Meteor Showers

The very best thing you can do to maximize your meteor shower enjoyment is get as far away from light pollution (city lights, etc.) as you can and find a location with a clear, unclouded view of the night sky that is not obstructed by trees, hills or other objects. Once you get there, search for the darkest patch of sky you can find, as meteors can appear anywhere overhead.
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Anyone who has ever gazed at a dark sky for more than a few minutes has almost certainly seen a burst of light appearing out of nowhere that disappears just as quickly.
We call such a startling phenomenon romantic names like a "falling star" or a "shooting star," but a more accurate term is "meteor."
These are often tiny particles from space ("meteoroids") that slam into our upper atmosphere at tens of thousands of miles per hour and radiate brilliantly as they meet their fiery demise ("meteors"). Amazingly, most are only the size of a grain of sand.
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Meteor Showers

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A meteor shower (intense or unusual manifestations of which are known as "meteor outbursts" and "meteor storms) is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate from one point in the night sky.
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Found: 62 meteor showers new to science
Every now and again, biologists turn up a bonanza of new species deep in the ocean or in remote corners of the Earth. But astronomers usually have to make do with a trickle of new discoveries, spotting a rare supernova here or a couple of backwards planets there.
Now, researchers in Canada report finding an incredible 62 new meteor showers, displays of 'shooting stars' that recur every year when Earth passes through the trail of debris left behind by a comet or asteroid.

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Those in China with an interest in astronomy will be lucky enough to observe not one, not two, but three meteor showers this autumn.

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