Archives for the 'meteors' Category
The meteorite and the tornado
Published on 9 May 2007 at 1:10 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized, meteors.
The news media pride themselves on accurate unbiased reporting of important events. Yeah, right. I’ll grant that they report on events. Those adjectives, though, …
An example came just a little while ago. Someone asked me about the meteorite that fell during the monster tornado that destroyed the town of Greensburg, Kansas. […]
Read ‘The meteorite and the tornado’
The Geminid Meteors
Published on 10 Dec 2006 at 2:18 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under meteors.
A little over a week ago, I posted about the asteroid Phaethon and its association with the Geminid Meteors. The Geminid Meteor Shower peaks early Thursday morning, December 14. The Moon will rise about 1:30 to 2:00am (depending upon your location), so there will be a few hours of good dark skies in […]
3200 Phaethon: Asteroid or Dead Comet?
Published on 1 Dec 2006 at 3:41 pm.
6 Comments.
Filed under asteroids, comets, meteors.
Comets are icy bodies that form in the outermost parts of the Solar System. Sometimes their orbits are disturbed, and they swing close to the Sun. When this happens, the ices (frozen water, frozen carbon dioxide, frozen methane, frozen ammonia, etc) begin to sublimate and shoot off, giving rise to a pretty blue […]
Read ‘3200 Phaethon: Asteroid or Dead Comet?’
Leonid Update
Published on 20 Nov 2006 at 2:34 pm.
No Comments.
Filed under meteors, skywatching.
Well, the data seems to be coming in. The Leonids were pretty pitiful this weekend. Preliminary data from the International Meteor Organization suggests that the peak was about when expected, but at best less than half of the expected strength. But, after the peak, the activity just dropped off to next to nothing. We saw […]
2006 Leonids
Published on 15 Nov 2006 at 5:52 pm.
7 Comments.
Filed under meteors.
The Leonid Meteors are famous among meteor observers. For much of my life in astronomy, I have heard about the 1966 Leonid storm. The entire sky was lit up with meteors, perhaps a dozen per second. Even that paled compared to the 1833 Leonid storm, which is what really started astronomers looking at meteors. Until […]
October’s Orionid Meteors
Published on 12 Oct 2006 at 1:11 am.
2 Comments.
Filed under meteors.
October of every year brings meteors. Actually there are several meteor showers in October, but the biggest one is the Orionid meteor shower. The Orionids aren’t the biggest, nor the best meteor showers of the year, but they are predictable and quite reliable. Another nice thing about the Orionids is that they are associated with […]
Read ‘October’s Orionid Meteors’
The Odessa Crater
Published on 17 Sep 2006 at 12:17 pm.
6 Comments.
Filed under meteors, travel.
If you are travelling through west Texas on I-20, there’s a great place to stop just west of Odessa. It is a hole in the ground. While that might not sound exciting, this hole was made by a meteorite impact some 50,000 years ago. This crater is really pretty easy to get […]
