Meteor Showers

Meteror showers phenomena happens when our planet crosses streams of cosmic debris left by comets or asteroids. As they approach the sun, comets leave part of its volatile material, creating structures also known as comet tail and coma. In the evaporation process, solid particles are also released from the nucleus. When planet earth crosses this trail left by the comet, the solid particles left behind enter in the atmosphere producing this amazing spectacle called meteor shower. There same phenomena may be produced by asteroid’s particles, though very rare but it happens. Collided asteroids, or astral bodies that used to be comets, but lost volatile material, may also leave trails of solid particles.

As Earth’s orbit along with the orbits of various comets and asteroids, it is possible to forecast dates for meteor showers. We are incapable, however, to precisely measure the amount of meteors for the upcoming shower.

At each shower, there is a specific region where the meteors seem to be coming from, this region is called radiant, and each shower is named after the position of the constellation where the radiant is localized.