Friday, May 23, 2014

Speaking of Catastrophic Meteor Insurance: A Never-Before-Seen Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight – Here's How To Watch

Following up on "Climateer Line of the Day: Tesla Covered It Edition".
From io9:

 A Never-Before-Seen Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight – Here's How To Watch
Skygazers tonight will have a rare opportunity to witness the arrival of a brand new meteor shower. Astronomers aren't sure what to expect, but many predict we could see the skies flood with hundreds of meteors per hour, which would make tonight's far and away the most spectacular shower of the year.
Above: Perseid Meteor Shower seen over Mobius Arch, Alabama Hills. Photo Credit: Kartik Ramanathan // CC BY 2.0 
A Brand New Meteor Shower
The new shower is called the Camelopardalids. It takes its name from the constellation Camelopardalis, from which its meteors will appear to originate. In actuality, the shower's origins extend all the way back to the early 1800s, when dust and debris trailing from a comet named 209P/LINEAR embarked an elliptical collision course set to intersect with Earth's atmosphere over two centuries later. That intersection is expected to occur in a matter of hours. In fact, it is projected that all trails emitted by the comet between 1803 and 1924 stand a chance of colliding with Earth's atmosphere this very night. When they do, astronomers forecast, they will vaporize, igniting the sky in a luminescent meteor storm the likes of which we haven't seen in years....MUCH MORE