Draconid Meteor Shower May Be a Storm Saturday, but Will Anyone See?
For meteor enthusiasts, the month of October usually means watching for the reliable Orionid meteors late in the month. But this year could bring a “surprise” October meteor shower: the long dormant Draconid meteor shower, will again come streaking out of the constellation Draco, the Dragon this Saturday (Oct. 8), though the nearly full moon and the shower’s timing may interfere.
The peak of the Draconid meteor shower promises hundreds of “shooting stars” per hour,burberry outlet cheap but it will occur during the daylight hours for observers in North America, making the peak time unavailable for U.S. skywatchers. For observers outside the United States, the nearly full moon may outshine the meteor shower display.
The sky map of the Draconids shows where to look to see the meteor shower this year.
Spawned from Periodic Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, the Draconid shower (also known as the “Giacobinids”) produced two of the greatest meteor displays in the 20th century, in 1933 and 1946. Lesser showers arrived in 1926, 1952, 1985, 1998 and 2005.
But most years bring no Draconids at all. This year, however, we could see the Draconids once again come to life.
Draconid comet crumbs
Comet Giacobini-Zinner travels around the Sun in a 6.6-year orbit, with its aphelion (farthest point from the sun) lying just outside Jupiter’s orbit. This flags it as a member of Jupiter’s family of comets; there are over 400 such comets known today.
The gravitational influence of the giant planet has clearly shepherded Giacobini-Zinner into the orbit where we find it today. Periodically, the giant planet’s strong gravity continues to perturb Giacobini-Zinner a little this way or that.
The meteoroids that crumble off a comet’s nucleus form a thin sheet in the comet’s orbital plane. Whenever Earth plunges through this plane we have a chance for a meteor shower. Whether we get a strong Draconid meteor shower or none at all depends on exactly what part of the plane we go through and whether there is any dusty material for the Earth to interact with.
In 1933 and 1946, the Draconids put on stupendous displays thanks to Earth sweeping through a dense trail of dust that was shed by the comet in 1900. In 1933, Europeans reported seeing rates of 6,000 or more per hour; the highest estimate was an astonishing 480 per minute by an observer stationed in Malta.
Then in 1946 it was North America’ turn. Unfortunately, a brilliant full moon and widespread cloud cover hindered observers in many areas but where skies were clear counts of 50 to 100 meteors per minute were reported.
One report compared the Draconids to “white snowflakes in a minor snowstorm.”
Now it appears that the Earth will again pass through this very same dense dust trail from 1900 that spawned the tremendous displays in 1933 and 1946. However, unlike those previous interactions, where the Earth hit the 1900 dust trail almost head-on, calculations by a number of reputable meteor experts indicate that this time we’ll only sample the trail’s outer extremities.
Nonetheless, a brief outburst of perhaps several hundred (or more) Draconid meteors per hour is anticipated on Oct. 8 by a number of reputable meteor scientists. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the moon will be full on Oct. 11, which means that when the Draconids reach their peak on Oct. 8, a brilliant gibbous moon will be in the sky and likely will squelch views of all but the brightest Draconid streaks.
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