Humpty Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 May be worth staying up to have a look at. "It's the Geminid meteor shower," says NASA astronomer Bill Cooke of the Marshall Space Flight Center. "Start watching on Thursday evening, Dec. 13th, around 10 pm local time," he advises. "At first you might not see very many meteors?but be patient. The show really heats up after midnight and by dawn on Friday, Dec. 14th, there could be dozens of bright meteors per hour streaking across the sky." The Geminids are not ordinary meteors. While most meteor showers come from comets, Geminids come from an asteroid?a near-Earth object named 3200 Phaethon. "It's very strange," says Cooke. How does an asteroid make a meteor shower? Comets do it by evaporating. When a comet flies close to the sun, intense heat vaporizes the comet?s "dirty ice" resulting in high-speed jets of comet dust that spew into interplanetary space. When a speck of this comet dust hits Earth's atmosphere traveling ~100,000 mph, it disintegrates in a bright flash of light?a meteor! Nasa Article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LuLu Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 I love meteor showers. Hopefully I'll be able to catch this one. I'm here. What are your other two wishes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDPower Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 I love meteor showers. Hopefully I'll be able to catch this one. Me too but they can be damn infuriating, especially if watching with someone else - "There's one", "Damn, missed it". "Theres another one", "Where?", "It's gone now". "Theres another one", "Aaaaaaaargh!!!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigathus Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 Humpty, I'll have to stay up late for that http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/builds http://www.piriform.com/docs http://www.postimage.org/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Andavari Posted December 5, 2007 Moderators Share Posted December 5, 2007 The operation manual for meteor shower viewing: 1. Look up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DennisD Posted December 5, 2007 Moderators Share Posted December 5, 2007 Here's a pretty dramatic video of a meteor hitting the ground. Looks real, but it's seems too real to be true. Although from the cheering after, I wonder? Link: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LuLu Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 Me too but they can be damn infuriating, especially if watching with someone else - "There's one", "Damn, missed it". "Theres another one", "Where?", "It's gone now". "Theres another one", "Aaaaaaaargh!!!" LOL I definitely see the truth in that. I'm here. What are your other two wishes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDPower Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 Here's a pretty dramatic video of a meteor hitting the ground. Looks real, but it's seems too real to be true. Although from the cheering after, I wonder? Link: It's not real, its a car advert (meteor hits car, car drives out unscathed). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DennisD Posted December 5, 2007 Moderators Share Posted December 5, 2007 Damn, I've never seen the ad. That's why it looks so real, flaming computer graphics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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