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Show Shower of "stars" to fall According to the Hansen Planetarium, a "shower" of meteors is expected the night of Friday, Aug; 11. "All through the night, brief, needlelike streaks of light will cut across the sky as the Persied meteor Shower creates what is usually one of the' two best meteor displays of the year," says Hansen Planetarium spokesperson Patrick Wiggins. "Observers away from city lights and smog may be able to count over 50 meteors per hour. Telescopes or binpculars should, not be used for viewing this or any meteor shower as such devices restrict the. observer's view. Those wishing to view the Persieds should find a location away from lights and should look high in the northern sky," advises Wiggins. This particular shower is called the Persieds because it appears to radiate from the direction of the constellation Perseus. Another name for the Persieds is St. Lawrence's Tears, so named because St. Lawrence was martyred during the time of this shower in the year 258 A.D. Often called "shooting stars" or "falling stars," meteors are actually actu-ally tiny bits of rock, most no larger than a grain of sand. These- particular par-ticular meteors strike the Earth's upper atmosphere at speeds of 60 kmsec (40 misec) and burn up at an altitude of 90 to 110 kilometers (55 to 70 miles) because of friction with the air. Most meteor particles are thought to have been left behind by comets. The Persied meteors are believed by astronomers to be debris left by Comet Swift-Tuttle, a body estimated to have weighed over 200 billion tons, which was first charted in 1862 and has not been seen since. The Persied meteor shower may also be visible several nights before and after the Friday nightSaturday morning peak, but the numbers of meteors on those nights could be fewer because the Earth will then be less centered in the swarm of comet particles. |