Fall Into Autumn

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Chances are, just a few hours before darkness begins falling in the United States on August 11, Europe will see what may be one of the greater meteor displays in history. It's also possible that the aftermath of the shower's peak will provide quite a view for Americans, displaying hundreds of meteors per hour.

To refresh your memory, a meteor is the streak of light produced when a piece of space rock or iron enters our atmosphere at such great speed that it burns up from friction with the air. A meteor shower is an increased number of meteors appearing to come from a single spot among the constellations. And the Perseid meteor shower (from the constellation Perseus) is often the best of all annual meteors showers, producing as many as 50, 60, or sometimes more meteors for observers to see.

But this year the Earth is likely to see a super display of the Perseids. The parent comet of the meteors, Swift-Tuttle, finally returned to the inner solar system last year and on August 11 we will be passing close a to where it went late last December.

Many experts think the Earth will experience the Perseid meteor storm. In 1991, the Perseids poured over Japan at rates of 300 to 400 per hour for one hour. Last year, the Moon was full and cloudiness prevailed over the Far East, but again that part of the world was rained over by a powerful Perseid burst. There were so many meteors that bright ones were visible like flashes of lightning even through the clouds. Rates of a few thousand might have been visible in the hour of outburst if skies had been clear.

The world's leading authority on comet and meteor stream orbits, Harvard Universitys Brian Marsden, thinks the great burst will be at its best around 6:22 Pmt. EDT—approximately an hour and a half before sunset on the East Coast. Marsden also calculates that this August 11, Earth is coming closer to the orbit of the parent comet years. Yet there are records a mere thousands years ago of Perseid storms so strong that meteors "fell like snow!"

There is something U.S. viewers can do to increase their chances of catching the storm outburst if it occurs over America (or at least if a strong aftermath should oc cur). First of all, try to find a site many miles away from city light. (Be prepared to view far less if the sky is hazy that night.) On August 11, look in the northeast sky between 6 P .m. and 7 P.m. just to make sure that there aren't some day-bright Perseids zooming there. Keep your fingers crossed as darkness falls after 8 P .m. Even then, the constellation Perseus is still low in the northeast, but if the spate occurs, the sight will still be tremendous.

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