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Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: Daylight Meteors:  Airetids - Peak activity:  June 6th

http://www.spaceweather.com/meteors/arietids.html]Click

*This is the strongest daytime meteor shower of the year.  Of course Sol makes most of them unseeable. 

However:

If you want to see a few Arietids, try looking just before sunrise.  Arietid radiant rises in the east about 45 minutes before the sun. (This is true for observers in both of Earth's hemispheres, north and south.)

Arietids seen before dawn tend to be "Earthgrazers"; they're described as streaking far across the sky, and are slow and bright. 

No one is sure where Arietid meteoroids come from, although some astronomers suspect they are debris from the sungrazing asteroid 1566 Icarus.

I'll be up early working anyway; will definitely step outdoors to try and see some.  Our weather has been very clear and sunny (as per norm) lately. 

Says these meteors hit our atmosphere at 87,000 mph.  Yipes.

Peak activity is June 6.  However, I've put July 1 as the event date because only one date is allowable and the Airetids will continue throughout the month of June. 

--Cindy 

::EDIT::  Southern hemisphere map

::EDIT 2::  I just now read at a different web site that 30 Arietids per hour is expected.  Also:

Want to practice some astronomy during the day? Then grab an FM radio and enjoy as we are entering some of the strongest daytime radio meteor showers of the year. All you need is an external antenna. Tune the receiver to the lowest frequency that does not produce a clear signal. Each time a meteor passes through our atmosphere, it leaves an ion trail that bounces back distant radio signals to you - even in a stationary car! Listen to the static for a quick rise in volume or a snatch of a distant station that lasts a second or two followed by a fade.

I've got a radio by my desk... 

(Info in that quote from universetoday.com; all previous info from an article hosted by spaceweather.com)

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)