유성우 Meteor Shower

[프란치스코]

별들의 잔치인가?
4월엔 'The Lyrids', 8월엔 'The Perseids', 11월엔 'The Leonids'이 유명하다는데 ...

이번 유성우는 금요일 아침 절정을 이루고 월요일(25일)에 끝날 것으로 예측하고 있으며, 시간당 10~15개의 유성을 관찰할 수 있답니다.

With the Lyrid meteor shower set to give its best show on Friday morning, we reveal everything you need to know about this astronomical event.

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What is the Lyrid meteor shower?

The Lyrid meteor shower occurs every April, when the Earth passes through the moving dust and debris left behind by the comet Thatcher (also known as comet C/1861 G1), as this icy body travels around the sun on its 415-year orbit. “We are travelling at nearly 30km per second around the sun, and when we hit these specks of dust travelling at that speed they burn up in the atmosphere just due to friction,” Marek Kukula, public astronomer at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, told the Guardian. “It is a bit like driving down the motorway through a cloud of midges and they all splat on your windscreen.”

Where does its name come from?

The Lyrid meteor shower is so-called because the meteors look as though they are coming from near the star Vega, which lies within the Lyra constellation (itself named after the lyre, a musical instrument).

When is the best time to look for meteors?

“The shower actually lasts for several days, and tonight or tomorrow morning is the peak of the shower,” said Kukula. While you have a chance of glimpsing a meteor any time after dark, the best time to look is in the early hours of Friday morning, 22 April. The shower is expected to end on 25 April.

Where do I look?

The meteors can appear anywhere in the sky but your best bet, explained Kukula, is to look towards the Eastern part of the sky. Those in rural areas away from bright street lights will have the best chance of seeing the meteors, although tonight’s full moon might make the fainter ones harder to spot. “Even in a city you should be able to see some of the brighter ones, it is just a question of sitting out there and waiting long enough, so you have to wrap up warm!” said Kukula.

How many meteors will I see?

You can expect to see around 10 to 15 meteors an hour, although light pollution and the full moon might lessen your chances of seeing the fainter ones.

And some trivia ...

The Lyrid shower is one of the oldest meteor showers recorded, with Chinese astronomers thought to have spotted it nearly 2,700 years ago. But it isn’t the only annual event to look out for. The Perseids in August and Leonids in November also give a good show and each arise from dust left from a different comet. “In the 19th century there was a very famous incident of the Leonid meteor shower where the whole sky was lit up by hundreds and thousands of meteors per hour,” said Kukula. “It looked like a firework display and people were quite frightened by it at the time.”

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(글, 사진: 가디언)