More 2007 meteor showers on the way!

Download our calendar and guide at the end of this article!

But if you're eager, you might not have much time to prepare as the morning of September 1st is the date of the next natural light show!

Astronomers aren’t certain what to expect of the Alpha Aurigid meteor shower - when the earth intersects the dust trail of comet Kiess. It’s thought that Kiess has only passed through the solar system twice in the past two thousand years – laying down a trail of debris which the earth has crossed during it''s orbit around the sun only three times in the last century - so nobody knows if the predicted Alpha Aurigid meteor shower will be fizzle or fireworks – but if you’re up in the early morning of September 1st and you live in Western North America you might be in for a treat!

If the Alpha Aurigid shower fails to impress you, all is not lost during the remainder of 2007. Our downloadble calendar available at the bottom of this article lists 15 more meteor showers this year, amongst these are the Orionids with an estimated 23 meteorites per hour – and the Geminids with a whopping 120 per hour! While we can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to see them from where you live due to your location on the planet, weather or other reasons, our guide will give you a good idea of when you’ll get your next chance..

What are meteor showers?

On most any clear night you may see a streak of light blaze across the sky. What you’ve seen is a meteor, a tiny piece of cosmic debris which has entered the earth’s atmosphere at great speed and vapourised. Most of the fragments are the size of a grain of sand and don’t make it to the earth’s surface before they disintegrate – the much rarer larger chunks, which do reach the earth are usually no larger than a few centimetres across and these are called meteorites.

On a number of occasions during the course of the year, as the earth moves around the sun in it’s orbit, the planet encounters a trail debris. This trail was left in the path of a comet which has gone across the path of the earth’s orbit on it’s own way around the sun and back out to the outer solar system. Comets are famously called ‘dirty snowballs’ as they’re made up of ice and rock. As comets approach the sun they begin to melt, shedding pieces of themselves in their path which is visible as the comet’s tail. These pieces of the comet spread out a little, but mostly remain in the path which the comet took around the sun. When the earth crosses this path the comet particles encounter the earth’s atmosphere and burn, resulting in a meteor. Very ‘dusty’ comet trails result in meteor showers!

How do meteor showers get their names?

Meteor showers are named for the constellation in the sky from which they appear to radiate. Even though the earth will intersect a comet trail at a particular angle, each piece of debris will hit the atmosphere in a unique way. Much like skipping stones across a pond, each chunk of ‘comet stuff’ will bounce against the atmosphere and take it’s own course prior to sinking in deeper and burning up – and so, they’ll appear to fan out from one particular point in the sky. For example, the Perseid meteor shower radiates from the constellation of Perseus, the Geminids from Gemini, Lyrids from Lyra – and so on.

So, where do comets come from?