First Weekend of the New Year Brings Quadrantid Meteor Shower

Excerpt from savingadvice.com




For those who want to save money, one of the best free resources

available to everyone are nature’s displays. The first weekend of the

New Year will begin with a bang, although this bang will be of

interstellar origins. This weekend (Jan. 3), the first meteor display of

2015 will reach its peak on Saturday night in a display of lights known

as the Quadrantid meteor shower. According to science reporter Geoff Gaherty,

“Meteor shows are usually named after the constellation in the sky

where their radiant is located: the point in the sky from which they

appear to radiate. Thus, the Perseids [showers] are named for Perseus

and the Geminids [showers] are named for Gemini.”

Interestingly, Gaherty informs the reader that “there is no

constellation named Quadrans” whence scientists derived the name

Quadrantid. Instead, there was once the Quadrans Muralis constellation,

which became a part of the constellation Bootes in 1922. The name of the

meteor, however, was retained.

Quadrantids are also known to be a January meteor shower,

as opposed to the more famous Perseids observed in August or the

Geminids seen in December. Additionally, quadrantid meteors are less

frequently observed than the other two meteor showers given that its

peak intensity lasts only hours. Still, Gaherty writes that the

Quadrantid shower “can produce as many bright meteors during its peak as

the more famous Perseids.” Thus, in order to view this spectacular

display, “timing is everything.”

Using past observations, researchers predict that the peak of 2015′s

Quadrantid meteor shower will occur at 9 p.m. EST on Jan. 3. “During

this time, the radiant will be close to the northern horizon and there

is a good chance of seeing…meteors coming in close to the horizon to the

east and west.”

The radiant, however, is expected to rise higher in the northeastern

sky, until more meteors become visible in the east. According to

Gaherty, the best time to then observe the Quadrantids will be between

midnight and 2 a.m. (some reports say dawn) in the Northern Hemisphere.

Unfortunately, the shooting stars may be hard to view because of an

almost-full moon on Saturday, which will radiate its own impressive

brightness. Still, NASA predicts that at the peak of the Quadrantid

shower, approximately 80 meteors an hour will be released, which should

be remarkable in its own right.

Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AscensionEarth2012/~3/7EhgRk2wWgY/first-weekend-of-new-year-brings.html

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First Weekend of the New Year Brings Quadrantid Meteor Shower