Perseid Meteor Shower To Peak This Weekend 118
Krishna Dagli writes "This weekend provides one of the year's best opportunities to see some "shooting stars". The annual Perseid meteor display is expected to peak on Friday and Saturday night. Meteors are bits of dust or rock that plunge into the Earth's atmosphere and burn up, making bright streaks in the sky. It does not take a large object to produce a visible meteor — most are the size of a grain of sand or a small pebble."
They're not really meteors (Score:4, Funny)
Re:They're not really meteors (Score:1)
Detecting aliens (Score:2)
Re:Detecting aliens (Score:1)
Late Late Late (Score:5, Funny)
Shoot, I missed most of it.
Re:Late Late Late (Score:5, Informative)
I've seen the Perseid shower before, on Boy Scout trips as a youth, but watching it with my own son would be quite an experience. Oh well, this story at least reminded me of it, so maybe I'll be able to prepare to see it next year.
Re:Late Late Late (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:3, Informative)
a. Skyline Drive
b. Blue Ridge Parkway
c. move
Re:Late Late Late (Score:2)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:2)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:2)
And here we see a limitation of wiki's extension of the UNIX 'everything is plain, unstructured, text' philosophy. Does this list exist in iCalendar format somewhere so I can just subscribe to it?
Re:Late Late Late (Score:1)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:1)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:1)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:1)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:2, Informative)
This [bbc.co.uk] would have told you in plenty of time, for instance - I think it was there before the end of my work-day on Wednesday.
Unfortuntately it's been way too cloudy here (NE England) to see anything, after 2 months of cloudless skies....
Re:Late Late Late (Score:1)
Don't worry. For, you see, I know Superman.
I can get him to fly real fast around the world, thus reversing time and bringing us back to a point before when this story should've been posted.
Re:Late Late Late (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:1)
When you travel far enough you can see several per hour.
Re:Late Late Late (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:2)
If I lie down in my back yard I can barely see the dull orange glow of Philadelphia to the south. Strangely, no meteors! Or stars for that matter. I go to school in Washington DC and we had to do all of out observing for astronomy class on computers with simulation software. Too much of the world is bathed in constant light pollution. I miss living in the midwest.
Re:Late Late Late (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseids [wikipedia.org]. He can see them next year. I agree, though, it would've been nice to have a more timely reminder.
Re:Late Late Late (Score:2, Funny)
so now it's not only late, but wrong too?
ye gods!
Re:Late Late Late (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:2)
The Earth goes around the sun about once every year.
Re:Late Late Late (Score:2)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:1)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:2)
Re:Late Late Late (Score:1)
Erm.. (Score:2, Informative)
Plus you know it is sort of Sunday here in the UK, doesn't that make this news story rather useless to a large population of the readers (not to mention Americans who will be sleeping at 11pm - Guy trying to be funny. It's not funny that Slashdotters sit up late, save the joke).
Re:Erm.. (Score:4, Funny)
but a spelling one would be nice.
Re:Erm.. (Score:1, Funny)
Spelling, on the other hand...
Re:Your signature (Score:2)
Well, the most common tags include "yes", "no", "fud", "notfud", "duh", and "maybe", so it appears the democratic process has pwned your opinion.
Re:Your signature (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Your signature (Score:1)
Yes, No and Maybe should not be on every damn article posted. They're not useful for anything because all 3 link up together in the same article more times than not.
Fud and notfud on the other hand are perfectly valid tags. Could be useful to see how much fud is posted on slashdot for example.
Also this "democracy" you speak of is a fictional idea on Slashdot. We live in a state where random
Re:Not merely 3rd grade science... (Score:5, Informative)
That's not true. The distinction between a meteor and a meteorite is that meteors do not fall all the way to the ground, and meteorites do.
This also isn't true. Stuff continues to move out there, so we don't pass through the exact same spot in the debris trail every year. How big the meteor shower is varies from year to year.
I'll let somebody else point out that the orbit is 133 years, not 150.
Re:Not merely 3rd grade science... (Score:5, Funny)
The orbit is 133 years, not 150.
We dont like the Moon! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:We dont like the Moon! (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:We dont like the Moon! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:We dont like the Moon! (Score:2)
If it wasn't the moon... (Score:2)
Or zeppelins.
Or puffins also I think maybe they go quite high too maybe not as high as the moon coz the moon is very high.
(For those who don't get the pop-culture reference, It makes flash worthwhile [rathergood.com]).
I sense... (Score:4, Funny)
Story formatting (Score:2, Funny)
Um... (Score:2, Insightful)
Aren't slashdot editor's meant to be able to understand HTML? Another prime example for my signature:
Too late (Score:4, Funny)
Umm, HTML Tags? (Score:1)
I found a great science site... (Score:1, Offtopic)
(Ignore this after they fix the typo in the story
Re:I found a great science site... (Score:1)
"you goatse'd my slashdot!"
"you slashdotted my goatse!"
A new low in editing (Score:2, Funny)
Re:A new low in editing (Score:1, Funny)
Re:A new low in editing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A new low in editing (Score:2)
The View is Good from up high (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The View is Good from up high (Score:2)
I camped on the summit of a 14,000ft peak last night. I've never seen so many shooting stars
Are you sure those are shooting stars? If you're not well acclimated, funny things can happen as low as 10k. Speaking from experience here, although if you hiked up you probably did it slow enough. I had the rather interesting experience of driving up Mt. Evans in Colorado after spending less than a week in Denver, and my home alt. is less than 500 ft. There were no shooting stars as it was broad daylight, j
Re:The View is Good from up high (Score:2)
And hard to breathe, I would imagine? Oxygen is required for pilots flying above 10,000ft. At 14,000, your vision would be diminished due to hypoxia, and you probably didn't see nearly as many meteorites as you could have.
Re:The View is Good from up high (Score:2)
Hard to Breathe? (Score:3, Informative)
FAA regulations are overly cautious due to other circumsta
Re:Hard to Breathe? (Score:2)
Re:Hard to Breathe? (Score:2)
Well, the FAA seems to think so:
http://www.faa.gov/pilots/safety/pilotsafetybroch
But as they say, every person's reaction to hypoxia is different.
Required vs Encouraged (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Another matter in which I'm an expert.
While the view generally gets better the higher you go, the higher you go above 10,000 ft, the less oxygen your brain and eyeballs get to see with. O2 improves this so much at 14,000 ft, I've heard pilots describe the difference as "like turning the lights on". Especially at night (someone else mentioned that the FAR rules are lower at night as well).
While I expect that the view was quite spectacula
As slashdot says... (Score:3, Funny)
A Note to the Editors (Score:1, Redundant)
Sucked this year (Score:2, Informative)
Cool story and all..about testers? (Score:1)
Could it be a rounded edge thing? It stands out like it is.It almost even *infringes*. It has potential but it could be better. WTF do i know? Nothing.
And where should I post this? Paters journal?
Meteorite Hit Three Blocks From Me Once (Score:5, Interesting)
http://fireball.meteorite.free.fr/index_en.html [meteorite.free.fr]
Re:Meteorite Hit Three Blocks From Me Once (Score:1, Troll)
This bit from your link had me confused until I realised it was a European comma, not an everybody else comma.
Re:Meteorite Hit Three Blocks From Me Once (Score:2, Funny)
Well, Peekskill has a tradition of smashing up cars with rocks, don't it?
If I had a meteor
I'd hammer in the mornin'
I'd hammer in the evenin'
All over this car. . .
Everybody!
KFG
Re:Meteorite Hit Three Blocks From Me Once (Score:1)
Re:Meteorite Hit Three Blocks From Me Once (Score:1)
closing anchor tags (Score:3, Informative)
Re:closing anchor tags (Score:2, Funny)
America's Got Talent (Score:2)
Re:America's Got Talent (Score:2, Funny)
'72, but fizzled out all together ten years later.
KFG
Jeez (Score:2)
Ah, the wikipedia mentality: lots of desire to "explain", no actual grasp of the facts. I'm not even going to touch the "dust or rock" description. But note that meteors come in all sizes. It's true that most burn up in the atmosphere. (I seem to recall reading that this happens thousands of times a day.) But some are big enough to leave their remains (meteorites) [unm.edu] on the surface of the plan
Re:Jeez (Score:4, Informative)
Yay for dumbing down science for the masses.
Perfect Timing... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Skies (Score:1)
It's cloudy tonight.
*crawls back into bed*
Maybe next time.
I use them as a weather indicator (Score:3, Funny)
We had meteor forcast, its cloudy that even the clouds are obscured by clouds.
I there conclude that all these reports of meteor showrs are causing global warming - FIN
Others this year? (Score:1)
Would really appreciate the info!
Re:Others this year? (Score:3, Informative)
The Leonids, Geminids, and Orionids are the next biggest showers. You can find out here:
Meteor Shower article. [earthsky.org]
Not bad in N. Illinois (Score:1)
Stuff that matters! (Score:3, Funny)
Thanks!
Dupe! (Score:2, Funny)
I can almost see a pattern emerging... D'oh!
Overrated (Score:1)
Re:Overrated - NOT (Score:1)
Re:Overrated (Score:2)
Saw a good display last weekend. (Score:1)
And we're reading about it on Sunday (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:1)
Spectacular Meteor Shower Possible for 2007 (Score:2)