The Geminids: A Fiery Death

(Photo, via Wikipedia: "Leonid Meteor Storm, as seen over North America in the night of November 12./13., 1833. Source, E. Weiß: "Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt"; Published 1888) The Earth is hurtling through mostly empty space at nearly 70,000 mph. But space is only mostly empty. Throughout the solar system is debris left behind by comets, colliding asteroids, and even dust from interstellar space. When the Earth hits these things - at 70,000 mph - it puts on a nice show. You can see the show any time of the year. Just find a dark moonless sky and stare up for a while. You'll eventually see the quick streak of a shooting star. That "shooting star" was what happens when one of these tiny dust-sized pieces of debris gets in the way of the earth. It burns high in the atmosphere. Very very occasionally the earth will run into an even larger piece of debris. The best I ever saw in my life was when I was sitting on a beach in Hawaii and noticed a bright light behind me, turned around, and saw a huge bolide split multiple times in the air before disappearing behind a volcano behind me. These days they are often caught by security cameras or by whoever happens to have a video camera in their hand at the time. Some parts of the solar system are dirtier than others, and right now the Earth is plowing through one of the dirtier ones. We are plowing right through the orbit of a former comet, and that orbit is full of dust and small rocks sputtered out by the comet over centuries. The comet has lost so much debris, in fact, that by now it appears as a barely distinguishable rocky asteroid quietly orbiting the sun. If you want to see shooting stars and see a lot of them, now is a good time to get outside and do it. When? Where?...

The Geminids: A Fiery Death

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