‘Supermoon’ and meteor shower provide celestial drama

A METEOR SHOWER PRIMER

What is a meteor shower?

It is a significant spike in the number of meteors, or “shooting stars.” Shooting stars and “falling stars” both describe meteors — streaks of light across the night sky caused by small bits of interplanetary rock and debris called meteoroids. Traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour, the tiny pieces of debris quickly ignite from the searing friction with the atmosphere 30 to 80 miles above the ground, and vaporize.

Where does the debris come from?

Mostly from comets. Along their orbits around the sun, comets shed a stream of icy, dusty debris. When Earth moves through these streams, we see meteor showers.

Do meteor showers always appear in the same part of the sky?

No. They can appear anywhere in the sky, depending on their location in the solar system. Meteor showers are named for the constellation that coincides with this region in the sky, a spot known as the radiant. The Perseid meteor shower is so named because meteors appear to fall from its radiant, a point in the constellation Perseus.

How can I best view a meteor shower?

Under a darkened sky away from the glow of city lights. One such place near Atlanta is Hard Labor Creek State Park in Morgan County, where Georgia State University’s observatory is located.

When is it dark enough to see shooting stars?

If you can see each star of the Little Dipper, your eyes have “dark adapted,” and your viewing spot is probably dark enough.

Sources: stardate.org, NASA

Celestial wonders will take center stage next week — a “supermoon,” “fireballs” and the best meteor shower of the year.

The drama begins at sunset Sunday with the rising of the full moon — a supermoon. That’s the nickname that sky watchers give to a full moon that coincides with the time the moon is closest to the Earth during its monthly orbit around our planet. Supermoons may be as much as 14 percent closer and 30 percent brighter than run-of-the-mill full moons.

The scientific term for the phenomenon is “perigee moon.” Says NASA: “Full moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the moon’s orbit. The moon follows an elliptical path around Earth with one side (perigee) about 30,000 miles closer than the other (apogee). Full moons that occur on the perigee side of the moon’s orbit seem extra big and bright.”

Actually, this is a summer of supermoons. July’s full moon got that billing and so will September’s full moon. Sky watchers, though, say that August’s full moon will be the most impressive of the three because it is the closest approach of the moon to Earth during 2014.

It may not be easy, however, to tell the difference between a supermoon and an ordinary full moon. With nothing else in the sky to compare a supermoon with for brightness and size, one full moon may look like any other.