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december 12 2007 _red spectral skywalker [ben buluk]
NASA’s investigation centre the Marshall Centre, reminds us that on Saturday the 15th of December (Friday night) we can witness this year’s most powerful meteor shower.
The Gemenids are not meteorites in mass. Instead of coming from a comet, like the majority of meteorite showers, they come from an asteroid. Despite what the astronomer from NASA states this is an unusual occurrence. Normal meteorites arrive to Earth as streams of vapour caused by the evaporation of ice belonging to a comet, when they pass close to our astro-king (the sun). In this case, the shooting stars come from an object closer to the earth (an Asteroid called 3200 Faeton). The astronomer Bill Cooke thinks that 3200 Faeton was once a comet that due to its close approximation to the sun (closer than Mercury), all its ice evaporated leaving us with its rocky skeleton. In the process it gave off giant clouds of dust that have shifted, and have been orbiting our planet for thousands of years.
So thank you “3200 Faeton” whatever it is you are. You lot, be prepared, enthusiasts ... get to your telescopes! For those interested, get as far away from the city’s light pollution and start counting stars.
More information in:
http://ciencia.nasa.gov
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