Meteor showers

Dates that come back every year

You can see it with your eyes

Meteor showers — The streaks all seem to start from a single point: that point is called the radiant.

Finding it in the sky

When to look

Each shower comes back every year at about the same date. The two best are the Perseids, around August 12, and the Geminids, around December 14. The richest hours are the ones after midnight.

How to recognize it

You do not need to find the constellation. Just half turn your back to it: look up, toward the darkest part of the sky, and wait. The streaks will all start from more or less the same direction.

The main stars

PerseusPerseus
GeminiGemini
LeoLeo
OrionOrion

To get an idea

On a good Perseid night you can see one every two or three minutes, instead of one every half hour.

Fun facts

These are not in the book: there was no room on paper.

The Leonids of November 1833 were so thick that some people believed it was the end of the world.
When meteors reach thousands an hour, it is no longer called a shower but a storm.
The same comet can make two different showers, at two different times of the year.
In North America the Perseids are the big shower of warm summer nights, around the middle of August.
A full Moon spoils a shower more than any cloud: it lights up the whole sky.
To watch them well you need twenty minutes in the dark, the time your eyes need to adjust.

Test yourself

The first question is the one printed under the QR code, with the answer the book did not give. The other four only exist here.

Question 1 of 5★ is the one from your book

Why do showers come back on the same days every year?

Question 2 of 5

Where does a shower get its name?

Question 3 of 5

When can you watch the Perseids?

Question 4 of 5

From how many meteors an hour is it called a shower?

Question 5 of 5

What spoils the view the most?

Riddles

I come back every year on about the same day, and those who know me wait for me. I am not a party, but people go outside at night just for me. What am I?

I take my name from a constellation, but I do not come from there: it is only the point I seem to start from. I am born from a comet's crumbs. What am I?

There are so many of us, traveling side by side, and yet from the ground we all seem to come out of the same point, like tracks seen from far away. What are we?

Try it yourself

Activity 1

Go outside after midnight, turn off every light and wait twenty minutes without looking at your phone: only then do your eyes really see.

Activity 2

Count the meteors for a whole hour and write down the number. Compare it next year, on the same night.

The words

meteor shower: Many meteors on the same night, from the same direction.
meteoroid: The bit of rock while it is still in space.

Sources: Wikidata (Q105000), Wikipedia (Sciame meteorico).