Meteors

Meteors can be fun. They're definitely exciting. There's just so much to like about them. They're easy to view if you know where to look in the sky, where to do your viewing and when you'll have the best luck.

For example, astronomers usually have all the answers: When the Moon will rise. When a satellite will pass overhead. How bright a star is. The distance to Jupiter. The age of a galaxy. The best time to view Saturn's rings. Meteors are the great humbler of the smartest astronomers. They are totally unpredictable as they burn up in the atmosphere (the meteors, not the astronomers). Even the best astronomer can't predict when the next meteor will streak by overhead.

Meteor in the constellation Cygnus from Jadwin, MO.
August 2013 by Vic Rogus.

And meteors are "personal". If you see a meteor in the Salem skies, there's a chance you might be the only person to see that meteor. Think about it: You saw the meteor because you were at the right place at the right time and you looked at the right direction in the sky. Most people will be indoor at night. Most of the folks outside will be in bright areas and they'll be looking at things on the ground. Events like a lunar eclipse are visible to as much as half the world. Aurorae — the northern lights — will be visible to people over broad stretches of land. But a meteor overhead is only easily visible within a 50 mile circle. Good timing matters, too. A comet in the sky might be in the night sky for days or weeks. And even when International Space Station is visible in the night sky it takes several minutes to see the whole event. Viewers have plenty of time to catch views of slow and medium events. The FLASH of a meteor is just a blink compared to the plodding pace of that eclipse or comet or other sky events.  You can't call someone or text them to tell them to watch your meteor. If your neighbors are at the wrong location or looking in the wrong direction they'll miss your meteor. And when your meteor is gone, it's gone.

Meteor watching can be great family fun. Unlike viewing through a telescope — one person at a time — a whole group or family can watch the sky at once. Nothing but your eyes and attention (and patience) are needed. The youngest kid might be the first to see a meteor.

So how do you look for meteors? It's easy to see one meteor. It might just catch your eye as you look up into the night. If you kept looking at the sky all night you might average about 10 meteors per night away from town and maybe 5 meteors per night closer to the lights of town. The darker places will help your eyes see more — more stars and more meteors — and the same applies to the darkness of the sky. But those harvests of random meteors are pretty meager.

Meteor near Big Dipper from Jadwin, MO.
April, 2013 by Vic Rogus.

A better solution is to look for meteors during the time they occur more often. There are annual periods called "meteor showers" when more meteors appear and those meteors tend to come from a single location in the sky. For example, the Perseid meteor shower occurs in August every year and the meteors from the shower appear to come from the constellation Perseus. The meteors aren't coming from a constellation. That's just a patch of sky with some stars. The meteors we see are small particles that come off comets. (The comet associated with the Perseid meteors is called Swift-Tuttle. It's a comet the goes around the Sun every 133 years.) Many of the meteors you see are no bigger than a grain of sand. As a comet goes around the Sun, it leaves a trail of debris in its orbit. When the orbit of a comet crosses the orbit of the Earth, it's meteor time! Those small bits of the comet bump into our atmosphere as fast as 25,000 mph and faster. When they hit our upper atmosphere, the friction with the air compresses the air which heats the meteor to 3,000 degrees. Eventually the meteor burns up or slows enough to stop high temperatures. When the high heat stops, the meteor and atmosphere stop glowing. Your eye usually sees a meteor as a streak of constant light in the sky. But in photos of meteors, you can see that the light gets brighter and dimmer gradually as the meteor heats up and cools down (or burns up).

The best place for meteor viewing is a dark sky with open space. If you're in town, you can still view meteors but you'll miss the dimmer ones. If you're at a place where you can see some of the Milky Way that's better than in town. The more you see of the Milky Way the more meteors you'll see. One of the best public sites near Salem is Shawnee Mac Lake Conservation Area, northeast of town. From there you can see most of the Milky Way on a moonless night. There are plenty of locations to get away from the trees so you can see more sky.

When are the annual meteor showers? What's the best way to watch a meteor shower? What equipment do you need? Great questions. But rather than reinvent the wheel, let me give you some links to meteor experts. 

The American Meteor Society has great stuff. There's news, photos, explanations and an excellent meteor shower calendar. If you enjoy ebooks, you can download your copy of a free ebook from Sky & Telescope Magazine. It's a short book about the history of meteor observing and details on the Perseid meteor shower. The website "Meteors Showers Online" has some nice simple advice and suggestions.

A few comments about these resources: You might see a mention of the rate of visible meteors ("zenithal hourly rate"). The ZHR is a good way to find the most active meteor showers (and avoid the dull ones). But don't count on seeing that many meteors in one hour. The number represents the perfect conditions and a perfect observer and life is about coping with imperfections.

Have fun with your meteors!

10 Other Meteor Facts:

1. Before it glowed in our atmosphere, your meteor was a "meteoroid".
2. If it reaches the ground without burning up, your meteor becomes a "meteorite".
3. Most meteors burn up around 60 miles up. At that height, there's little air and no sound.
4. Meteors hit the Earth during the day as well as at night.
5. More meteors hit us near sunrise than near sunset.
6. When they hit the ground, meteorites are usually cool to the touch.
7. When there's a meteor shower on Earth, there's a meteorite shower on the Moon.
8. One of the best places to find meteorites is in the ice of Antarctica. 
9. Some meteors are from the Moon, Mars, or other rocky bodies in space.
10. You can "listen" to meteors using HAM radios.