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The Draconids (Draconid Meteor Shower)

rynner2

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Nasa warns new meteor storm 'could damage Hubble and International Space Station'
Satellites such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station are under new threat from the most powerful meteor storm in more than a decade, Nasa scientists have warned.
By Andrew Hough
Published: 6:30PM BST 17 Jun 2010

Astronomers believe the seven-hour bombardment from the comet debris, due later next year, could strike orbiting spacecraft and wreck their electronics.

Space Agency scientists said it will likely create a spectacular visual event for star gazers.

Nasa said the storm, which crosses the Earth's orbit around the sun every October, comes from a meteor shower called the Draconids.

It has been given that name because the meteors appear to stream in from the direction of the constellation of Draco the Dragon. They are also known as the Giacobinids after the name of the comet that dumped them, Giacobini-Zinner.

Nasa scientists admitted this week they were unclear how serious the storm will be, but spacecraft operators were already being notified to develop defensive mechanisms.

As a result, Nasa is currently investigating reorienting the international space station and Hubble space telescope to ensure vulnerable areas are turned away from the incoming sandblast.

Spacewalks could also be banned until the threat from the river of rock particles has passed.

But satellites, including those providing vital services such as communications, satnav and television, will weather the storm.

Apart from the physical danger from a direct strike, electrostatic discharges can fry their vital electronics.

Most years rates are fairly low, but can dramatically increase about every 13 years as the Earth travels through the densest part of the stream of particles.

Rates peaked at 54,000 meteors an hour for any single observer under ideal conditions in 1933 and 10,000 in 1946.

The last major display happened in 1998, peaking at a few hundred every hour, which was still the largest seen for recent years.


Dr William Cooke, from the Meteoroid Environment Office at Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Centre in Alabama, said contingency plans were already being developed to avoid problems when the storm is expected to hit.

His computer predictions concluded that several hundred meteors an hour could be visible from the earth on October 8 next year.

"We really didn't understand what was going on. Now we have a much better feel," he told space.com.

"We're already working with (other) Nasa programmes to deal with spacecraft risk. I imagine when the word gets out there will be a Draconid outburst, I'll get the usual calls from … companies as well as government space programs.

“If you are hit by a sporadic [meteor], it's an act of God. If you are hit by a shower meteoroid, it's an act of negligence.” 8)

He added: "Even if the Draconids were a full-scale meteor storm I would be confident that the space station (officials) would take the right steps to mitigate the risk."

His warnings were first aired at a meteoroid conference last month in Colorado.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/spac ... ation.html
 
Shooting star shower to pass over Britain
Britain's skies could be lit up by an array of shooting stars on Saturday night as the Earth has a rare encounter with the tail of a comet.
By Nick Collins, Science Correspondent
8:30AM BST 08 Oct 2011

As many as 750 meteors an hour are expected to streak across the sky from dusk until about 10pm, according to NASA experts.
Space scientists are worried that the shower, known as the Draconids, could damage satellites by frying their electronics and sending them out of control.
The light show comes as Earth passes through a cloud of dust left behind by a comet called Giacobini-Zinner, with previous storms occurring in 1933 and 1946.

There were also high rates of meteors seen in 1985, 1998 and 2005, but unlike the Perseids shower in Summer the Draconids are not an annual event.
In most years the Earth misses the stream of comet debris and nothing is seen at all.

Streaks left by meteors could appear in any part of the sky but their paths will trace back to the constellation of Draco, the Dragon, which gives them their name.

Many of the meteors may be lost in the glare of a waxing Moon that is approaching its Full phase, but Britain is well placed to view the shower if skies are clear, unlike America where it will still be daylight when it happens.

Robin Scagell, of the Society for Popular Astronomy, said: "The UK is perfectly placed to witness this rare spectacle. Stargazers will have their fingers crossed for clear skies so that we can see just what happens."

NASA experts mapped the cloud of dust left behind by the comet, which orbits the Sun once every six and a half years, and found that on Saturday night our planet will pass through a stream of debris dating back to 1900.
The predictions are thought to be sufficiently strong that scientists will fly aboard two Falcon 20 aircraft over Scandinavia to photograph the event.
Others from NASA and Japan have travelled to Germany and Uzbekistan for a ringside seat.

The shooting stars will burn up in Earth's atmosphere but astronomers will also be viewing the Moon, which has no atmosphere, through their telescopes to see flashes from Draconids hitting its surface.

Some fear the shower will threaten orbiting satellites and even the International Space Station as they orbit the Earth.
Though the meteor particles will only be the size of grains of sand, electric charges given off when they hit a spacecraft at high speed could short-circuit satellites' sensitive electronics and send them spinning out of control.

The Draconids' dust particles travel through space at around half the speed of other meteor streams and scientists are hopeful that this will make them less of a threat to their spacecraft.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/spac ... itain.html
 
Rain clouds here, no chance of seeing anything unfortunately.
 
eburacum said:
Rain clouds here, no chance of seeing anything unfortunately.
Yes, 8/8 cloud here too... :(
 
Re the Draconids tonight. A peak of five per hour, not the most spectacular and unlikely to trigger the Triffids.
 
Was I just terrible at searching or have you done some behind-the-scenes jiggery-pokery to create a specific thread?
 
Was I just terrible at searching or have you done some behind-the-scenes jiggery-pokery to create a specific thread?
Let's just say you weren't terrible at searching this time around ... :reyes:
 
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