Upcoming May Meteor Storm From 209P/LINEAR

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Well – here’s hoping for something spectacular and not another damp squib like Ison!
Less than two weeks to wait and see now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw3hVTUQ43U

http://www.space.com/25768-new-meteor-shower-comet-linear.html

New ‘Meteor Storm’ from Comet May Light Up Night Sky This Month

Skywatchers have something exciting to look forward to this month — a possible new meteor shower that could send up to 1,000 shooting stars per hour streaking through the sky.

On May 23 and May 24, Earth should plow through debris shed by Comet 209P/LINEAR, astronomers say. These extraterrestrial particles could give stargazers an incredible show as they burn up in the planet’s atmosphere — or the anticipated fireworks may fizzle out.


http://www.darkskytelescopehire.co.uk/meteor-storm-alert-new-may-meteor-shower-set-to-light-up-night-sky/

On 24 May 2014 a new meteor shower is predicted to light up northern hemisphere night skies. As many as 300 meteors per hour are set to streak across the sky in what could be a short-lived one-off meteor storm when Earth passes through the debris stream left over by Comet 209P/LINEAR. Peak meteor activity is forecast for around 07:40 UT (08:40 BST) on the morning of Saturday 24 May, which does not favour UK observers as the Sun will already have risen. But while observers in North America will have the best view Paris Observatory’s Jeremie Vaubaillon, co-discoverer of the new meteor shower, suggests that activity could last a few hours due to the spread of Comet 209P/LINEAR’s debris. UK stargazers might therefore still be able to catch a glimpse of the beginnings of the 24 May meteor shower just before it gets light on the Saturday morning.

22 thoughts on “Upcoming May Meteor Storm From 209P/LINEAR”

  3. Here’s Hoping Sqounk…

    Since it’s been Damp Squib heaped upon Deed Squid,

    All the let downs… Ison, and Aurora… Hoping too for a good NLC period.

    ( Yo Mary…Cos i know you are a curious one…Some NLC info for ya – http://www.nightskyhunter.com/Noctilucent%20Clouds.html )

    I remember an awesome Shower from the Dark Skies of a Loch island…we sat out watching the The Perseids, for hours..One August night…many moons ago.

    And the added chance of Moon and Venus rising.. Kool… Cheers for the video.

    Foto interlude time…. some NLC pics from the last 3 or so years – All taken in Port Glasgow area

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/115454618@N06/14181191054/

    Here is a nice Type III Sand Ripples , or Waves.

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/115454618@N06/14181191044/in/photostream/

    Here is a nice A for ( Alcanon ) Type… with the Bright star Capella center Left

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/115454618@N06/14181191074/in/photostream/

    Off to bed..car due in garage at 8 / 9am….

  5. After a day of overcast sky the sun has just come out prior to setting. Maybe I will get some breaks in the cloud to look for meteors tonight!

  6. Unexpected minor magnetic storm. Very slight chance for Aurora visibility in UK (if storming picks up further) tonight as well!

    http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/archive/current_month.html

    Space Weather Message Code: WARK04
    Serial Number: 2267
    Issue Time: 2014 May 23 2211 UTC

    EXTENDED WARNING: Geomagnetic K-index of 4 expected
    Extension to Serial Number: 2266
    Valid From: 2014 May 23 1605 UTC
    Now Valid Until: 2014 May 24 0700 UTC
    Warning Condition: Persistence
    Potential Impacts: Area of impact primarily poleward of 65 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude.
    Induced Currents – Weak power grid fluctuations can occur.
    Aurora – Aurora may be visible at high latitudes such as Canada and Alaska.

  8. Anything to report this time? Do hope so.

    The weather in the SE on this Bank Holiday Monday is dire. Quite chilly and very damp as the showers move away north east.

  10. Nevermind,

    That was an amusing read 🙂

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Report

    National Report (nationalreport.net) is a satirical website devoted to often subtle parodies of real news which convince the unwary. It is published by Allen Montgomery.

    Meteor shower wasn’t very active so we didn’t really miss anything under all that cloud.

  11. “Solar energy not enough for our solar panels, beware of draining the sun.”

    I don’t dismiss this Nevermind. I think the same about tapping into the fiery core of the earth. Eventually there will be no warmth left. Perhaps not in my lifetimes.

  14. There’s just been a filament eruption on the Sun – looks like it may have an earth directed component. See the last 5 seconds or so of video below.

    Awaiting Corona Imagery for more details.

  17. Ben,

    NASA did actually talk about it at the time – . I recall discussing it on another forum. Real time data was being fed for all to see live and people were commenting that it it was lucky not to be earth-facing.

    Here’s what NASA said about it in 2012.

    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/fast-cme.html

    NASA STEREO Observes One of the Fastest CMEs On Record

    On July 23, 2012, a massive cloud of solar material erupted off the sun’s right side, zooming out into space, passing one of NASA’s Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft along the way. Using the STEREO data, scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. clocked this giant cloud, known as a coronal mass ejection, or CME, as traveling between 1,800 and 2,200 miles per second as it left the sun.

    Conversations began to buzz and the emails to fly: this was the fastest CME ever observed by STEREO, which since its launch in 2006 has helped make CME speed measurements much more precise. Such an unusually strong bout of space weather gives scientists an opportunity to observe how these events affect the space around the sun, as well as to improve their understanding of what causes them.

    “Between 1,800 and 2,200 miles per second puts it without question as one of the top five CMEs ever measured by any spacecraft,” says solar scientist Alex Young at Goddard. “And if it’s at the top of that velocity range it’s probably the fastest.”

    …”We measure magnetic fields in ‘Tesla’ and this CME was 80 nanoTesla,” says Antti Pulkkinen, who is also a space weather scientist at Goddard. “This magnetic field is substantially larger even than the CMEs that caused large geomagnetic storms near Earth in October 2003. We call those storms the Halloween storms and scientists still study them to this day.”

    While large, this measurement of the magnetic field is still smaller than one of the greatest space weather events on record, the Carrington Event of 1859, during which the magnetic fields at Earth measured 110 nanoTesla.

    And here’s the STEREO imagery from the time along with the CME simulation released that day.

    I imagine it will be back in the news on the anniversary next year as well. That’s if a CME doesn’t get us all first!

  18. Here’s what spaceweather.com said at the time

    http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=23&month=07&year=2012

    The source of the CME was sunspot AR1520, which sparked many bright auroras earlier this month when it was on the Earthside of the sun. Now, however, the active region is transiting the sun’s farside so this blast was not geoeffective. One can only imagine the geomagnetic storms such a fast CME could produce if it were heading our way.

    Update: According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, this CME will miss all of the solar system’s inner planets.

    It should also be noted that STEREO-A, which took a direct hit, survived. Still I’d have got the candles out just in case had it been heading our way at the time…

  22. Ben,, Clark… Squonk,,,,, Thank yas All

    nevermind hard luck man..Good fight

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