Starfall for the weekend: Perseids

Image NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Meteor Showers
at Flirck

Perseids. Each year there is a meteor shower, or as they say rain of stars, this year it is for Perseids, one of the most popular meteor showers that come this weekend. Amateur astronomer Fred Bruenjes organized this composite image of the Perseids in 2007 of nearly 3,000 images taken during two nights. The picture illustrates that the Perseids come from the same area. You may not be deployed most spectacular of the year, most years, that honor goes to the Geminids in December. However, the shower is almost certainly the most watched meteor shower, coming as they do in the hot months of summer vacation.

Advised to look to the sky in a place as dark as possible and without obstacles to sight in the early hours of the nights of Saturday and Sunday. The Perseids Tears of St. Lawrence are produced when the Earth, in its way, through the tail of comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids are bits of periodic comet Swift-Tuttle.

 As the Earth passes near the comet's orbit, small pieces of debris, mostly the size of grains of sand, but some as large as peas or larger - enter the atmosphere at 60 km per second (134.000 mph .) From an altitude of about 100 km (60 miles), a meteoroid compresses the air in front of him like water before a speedboat, creating a shock wave hot. This is what most people see - not a little of the remains themselves. 

Meteors come from comets are more like clumps of dust that rocks. Even the larger ones are too fragile to reach the ground as meteorites - unlike the pieces of rock and iron, which come from asteroids. Earth passed closer to the comet Swift-Tuttle in 1992 and put on displays Perseid particularly spectacular in the years around then. The rain has returned to normal. The comet will not approach as close again until around 2125, but that does not mean that the Perseids this year will not be worth finding your own piece of dark sky. Try to get as far away from city lights as possible, bring a reclining chair to lie back and be patient.

 There is an application Meteor Counter if you want to capture some images, and then make a recording of critical data for each meteor: time, magnitude, latitude and longitude, along with the option of verbal annotations. Then these data are loaded automatically NASA researchers for analysis. Meteor Counter - (apple store) also offers a news and calendar of events, which are updated by professional scientists to keep you informed of the latest developments and meteor showers the next.