http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13152-meteors-mysterious-origin-traced-to-1490-event.html
Meteors' mysterious origin traced to 1490 event Stephen Battersby New Scientist 07 January 2008 Last week's Quadrantid meteor shower was probably debris from a deep-space explosion that went off in the late 15th century, new observations reveal. The meteors, which return every January, were observed more closely than ever before when a group of 14 astronomers tracked them for nine hours on a flight from California, US, to the North Pole. They found that the shower peaked at around 0200 GMT on Friday, matching a prediction made by Peter Jenniskens of NASA. He based his prediction on the theory that the shower originated in 1490, when observers in China, Japan and Korea saw a comet following a path similar to that of the Quadrantids. Apparently a sudden event caused the dormant comet to flare up - like Comet Holmes in October 2007 - leaving behind a stream of debris. Jenniskens calculated that such a young stream should be narrow, and thus easily deflected by Jupiter's gravity. That would make it arrive a few hours earlier than if it were an older, more diffuse stream. Friday's observations confirm the story. A closer analysis of the new data might also give astronomers some clues about what caused the outburst. The 1490 event left behind at least one larger remnant, a near-Earth asteroid called 2003 EH1. ______________________________________________ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
