Re: [meteorite-list] The 2006 Geminid Meteor Shower
Cloudy with a chance of rain through tonight[@ noon today] too too bad. PS I just got a celestron Skyscout. Should help with locating comets, astroids, Minor[duh] planets and Uranus, Neptune and a host of deep sky objects. Might even fill in all the Messier objects + some of the NGC's or is it NCG's?? Tiny test shows potential! Jerry Flaherty - Original Message - From: Ron Baalke [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Meteorite Mailing List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 8:00 PM Subject: [meteorite-list] The 2006 Geminid Meteor Shower http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/12dec_geminids.htm The 2006 Geminid Meteor Shower NASA Science News December 12, 2006 Dec. 12 , 2006: The best meteor shower of the year peaks this week on Dec. 13th and 14th. It's the Geminid meteor shower, says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, Alabama. Start watching on Wednesday evening, Dec. 13th, around 9 p.m. local time, he advises. The display will start small but grow in intensity as the night wears on. By Thursday morning, Dec. 14th, people in dark, rural areas could see one or two meteors every minute. The source of the Geminids is a mysterious object named 3200 Phaethon. No one can decide what it is, says Cooke. The mystery, properly told, begins in the 19th century: Before the mid-1800s there were no Geminids, or at least not enough to attract attention. The first Geminids appeared suddenly in 1862, surprising onlookers who saw dozens of meteors shoot out of the constellation Gemini. (That's how the shower gets its name, the Geminids.) Astronomers immediately began looking for a comet. Meteor showers result from debris that boils off a comet when it passes close to the Sun. When Earth passes through the debris, we see a meteor shower. For more than a hundred years astronomers searched in vain for the parent comet. Finally, in 1983, NASA's Infra-Red Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) spotted something. It was several kilometers wide and moved in about the same orbit as the Geminid meteoroids. Scientists named it 3200 Phaethon. Just one problem: Meteor showers are supposed to come from comets, but 3200 Phaethon seems to be an asteroid. It is rocky (not icy, like a comet) and has no obvious tail. Officially, 3200 Phaethon is catalogued as a PHA - a potentially hazardous asteroid whose path misses Earth's orbit by only 2 million miles. If 3200 Phaethon is truly an asteroid, with no tail, how did it produce the Geminids? Maybe it bumped up against another asteroid, offers Cooke. A collision could have created a cloud of dust and rock that follows Phaethon around in its orbit. This jibes with studies of Geminid fireballs. Some astronomers have studied the brightest Geminid meteors and concluded that the underlying debris must be rocky. Density estimates range from 1 to 3 g/cm3. That's much denser than flakes of comet dust (0.3 g/cm3), but close to the density of rock (3 g/cm3). So, are the Geminids an asteroid shower? Cooke isn't convinced. 3200 Phaethon might be a comet after all--an extinct comet, he says. The object's orbit carries it even closer to the Sun than Mercury. Extreme solar heat could've boiled away all of Phaethon's ice long ago, leaving behind this rocky skeleton that merely looks like an asteroid. In short, no one knows. It's a mystery to savor under the stars - the shooting stars - this Thursday morning. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] The 2006 Geminid Meteor Shower
Hello Tracy and list members, cool about your moon rocks. :-) How about any meteors in your part of the world? I know its no far from California, but I haven't seen any yet. Is it too early or is it another no-show like the Leonids? Anyone? Just wondering and watching, Moni _ Talk now to your Hotmail contacts with Windows Live Messenger. http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwme002001msn/direct/01/?href=http://get.live.com/messenger/overview __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] The 2006 Geminid Meteor Shower
So far nothing, but it is really too early to tell. Gemini hasn't risen above Haleakala yet, and there is an irritating band of clouds around the summit that is further obscuring issues. After the Leonid disappointment, I am debating if I really want to wake up at 2 a.m. to be mosquito fodder, or if I will just see what transpires shortly before bed, around 11. Tracy Latimer From: Moni Waiblinger-Seabridge [EMAIL PROTECTED] How about any meteors in your part of the world? I know its no far from California, but I haven't seen any yet. Is it too early or is it another no-show like the Leonids? Anyone? _ Share your latest news with your friends with the Windows Live Spaces friends module. http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwsp007001msn/direct/01/?href=http://spaces.live.com/spacesapi.aspx?wx_action=createwx_url=/friends.aspxmk __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] The 2006 Geminid Meteor Shower
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/12dec_geminids.htm The 2006 Geminid Meteor Shower NASA Science News December 12, 2006 Dec. 12 , 2006: The best meteor shower of the year peaks this week on Dec. 13th and 14th. It's the Geminid meteor shower, says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, Alabama. Start watching on Wednesday evening, Dec. 13th, around 9 p.m. local time, he advises. The display will start small but grow in intensity as the night wears on. By Thursday morning, Dec. 14th, people in dark, rural areas could see one or two meteors every minute. The source of the Geminids is a mysterious object named 3200 Phaethon. No one can decide what it is, says Cooke. The mystery, properly told, begins in the 19th century: Before the mid-1800s there were no Geminids, or at least not enough to attract attention. The first Geminids appeared suddenly in 1862, surprising onlookers who saw dozens of meteors shoot out of the constellation Gemini. (That's how the shower gets its name, the Geminids.) Astronomers immediately began looking for a comet. Meteor showers result from debris that boils off a comet when it passes close to the Sun. When Earth passes through the debris, we see a meteor shower. For more than a hundred years astronomers searched in vain for the parent comet. Finally, in 1983, NASA's Infra-Red Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) spotted something. It was several kilometers wide and moved in about the same orbit as the Geminid meteoroids. Scientists named it 3200 Phaethon. Just one problem: Meteor showers are supposed to come from comets, but 3200 Phaethon seems to be an asteroid. It is rocky (not icy, like a comet) and has no obvious tail. Officially, 3200 Phaethon is catalogued as a PHA - a potentially hazardous asteroid whose path misses Earth's orbit by only 2 million miles. If 3200 Phaethon is truly an asteroid, with no tail, how did it produce the Geminids? Maybe it bumped up against another asteroid, offers Cooke. A collision could have created a cloud of dust and rock that follows Phaethon around in its orbit. This jibes with studies of Geminid fireballs. Some astronomers have studied the brightest Geminid meteors and concluded that the underlying debris must be rocky. Density estimates range from 1 to 3 g/cm3. That's much denser than flakes of comet dust (0.3 g/cm3), but close to the density of rock (3 g/cm3). So, are the Geminids an asteroid shower? Cooke isn't convinced. 3200 Phaethon might be a comet after all--an extinct comet, he says. The object's orbit carries it even closer to the Sun than Mercury. Extreme solar heat could've boiled away all of Phaethon's ice long ago, leaving behind this rocky skeleton that merely looks like an asteroid. In short, no one knows. It's a mystery to savor under the stars - the shooting stars - this Thursday morning. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
