It vanishes before it reaches the surface of the planet

The "Meteor Shower" will start next Thursday... and there is no danger on Earth

There is a danger that dirt particles may pose to satellites.

From the source

The Director of the International Astronomy Center and a member of the International Meteor Organization, Eng. Muhammad Shawkat Odeh, expected that the “Pershawiyat” meteor shower will begin to fall on Thursday evening, August 12, stressing at the same time that the meteors do not pose any danger to the surface of the Earth at all, even if they are in the form of a storm.

He said that scientists and amateur astronomers are preparing to observe the most popular meteor shower of the year, which is called the Perseid meteor shower, in reference to the constellation “Perseus”, and the comet that causes this meteor shower is called “Swift Tuttle”, which revolves around the sun once every 130 years, and the meteors begin This meteor shower falls towards the Earth as it passes through the dust belt of the comet, and it occurs every year during the period from July 17 to August 24, and the number of meteors increases when the Earth crosses the densest area in this dust belt, and this period is every year between August 11 and 13 .

This year is considered a very suitable year for our region to see the Perseid meteors due to the lack of moon lighting at the peak time, and because the peak time is suitable for the Arab region because it occurs at night before dawn.

He stressed that all meteors vanish before they reach the surface of the Earth, but that there is a real danger that dust grains may pose to the satellites orbiting the Earth, as the meteor's speed may reach 72 km per second (200 times the speed of sound), explaining that the collision of a particle At this speed, with a diameter less than the diameter of a human hair, it can form an electric spark that can disable the sensitive satellite equipment, and thus stop it from working. For example, the Olympus communications satellite broke down during the Perseid meteor shower in 1993 due to its collision with one of the dirt particles.

This year, astronomical forecasts indicate that the traditional peak of the Perseid meteor shower will occur on the night of Thursday - Friday 12-13 August, between 07 and 10 pm GMT, and usually sees the peak time between 50 and 75 meteors if monitored from a dark place. It is appropriate, but in the case of observing from bright places inside cities or monitoring at a time far from the peak of the meteor shower, the observer may not see more than a few meteors only at best.

Odeh said that the Perseus group rises in this period around ten in the evening, and this means that the Perseid meteors begin to appear around ten in the evening, but their number is very few at this time, and over time the number of meteors will begin to increase to become more noticeable after midnight, and it will increase more with Approaching the time of dawn, so that the time before dawn is the most watched for meteors in general, and based on what was mentioned, those interested in seeing these meteors should monitor from a dark place far from the light of cities, starting from midnight Thursday on Friday, so that the largest number of meteors with dawn breaks.

He stated that the radiation point for this meteor shower is located in the northeast near the Perseus group, and the radiation point is an imaginary point from which all the meteors appear to originate, and although the meteors appear to be emanating from this point, the meteors can be seen anywhere in the sky, and it is usually preferred Look about 45 degrees away from the point of radiation, and 45 degrees away from the horizon.

He explained that meteors are dust grains that enter the Earth's atmosphere, melt and evaporate as a result of friction with it and ionize part of it, and as a result we see them in the form of a bright line that moves quickly in the sky for a period of seconds or a fraction of a second.

It is rare that the diameter of the meteor exceeds the diameter of a grain of dirt, as the diameter of the meteor ranges between 1 mm to 1 cm only, and the speed of the meteor when entering the atmosphere is between 11 to 72 km per second, and the meteor begins to appear at a height of approximately 100 km from The earth's surface.

The number of meteors that fall on Earth is about 100 million per day, most of which are not visible to the naked eye.

• 100 million, the number of meteors that fall on Earth daily.

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