I'm a geek. I like weird, science-y things. So when I was informed that there was going to be a meteor shower tomorrow night, I was literally giddy with excitement. Here are some nerd facts on the topic.
The August 2010 meteor shower is known by to the geek world as the Perseid Meteor Shower. It is called this because the point they appear from is in the Perseus constellation. Perseid means descendant of Perseus (told you i'm a geek :D). The meteor shower itself comes from the Comet Swift-Tuttle. This comet only passes by the Earth every 135-ish years. And guess what. It's about that time again. STRANGE FACT! Scientist are concerned that in the future, this comet may actually strike Earth, but we will be safe, considering they think it will be about 4000 years from now....
Carrying on with the now, experts are saying that the best times to be watching are sunset tonight and daybreak on the 13th. I personally will be watching them from the comfort of my hunting hill tomorrow night with some good friends.
One more really cool thing I was thinking about earlier was that August is a cool month this year. Somehow all of the stars aligned just right and we had a coronal mass ejection, and comet shower of massive proportions and will be having a close encounter with Mars. August, you rule!
Lots of action up in the sky this month for sure! Luck us right?
ReplyDeleteI missed the Perseid Shower, much to my dismay. As a consolation, there was a fantastic storm with some gorgeous lightning display that I sat and watched late one night after training camp. If there's one thing in my book that can trump stars and meteors, it's storms and lightning.
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