This night, the inhabitants of the Northern Hemisphere could observe the incredible beauty and scale of the meteor shower. Our planet passes through a very dense stream of Perseids, and if usually during this period you can see dozens of luminous meteorites, then this year - hundreds per hour.
Make a wish! Last night it could be done without ceasing - bright flashes did not stop until dawn. These days, residents of the entire Northern Hemisphere are watching the most intense meteor shower. Someone manages to capture it on video - it turns out especially effectively if you speed up the picture a little. It is better to admire this spectacle away from the city, where the light of lanterns or windows does not interfere. And in order for the eyes to get used to the darkness, scientists advise, without looking up, peer into the sky for about 10-15 minutes.
Shining sparks in the sky are left by the Swift-Tuttle comet, and they themselves are called Perseids in honor of the constellation Perseus. It is there that the epicenter is located - scientifically, the radiant - from which meteors fly. But it is better to look not directly at the constellation, but a little to the south or west, then visually the meteor shower seems brighter.
For several days in a row, you can see not even rain, but a shower of meteors. True, real showers spoiled the impression for the inhabitants of some regions of Russia, but in places where the weather was clear, the flow is so dense that up to two hundred Perseids fly through the sky per hour - this is almost twice as much as a year or two ago. The thing is that this year, at the moment when the Earth crosses the comet's orbit, our planet comes as close as possible to the core of this celestial body. The number of fire particles there is much higher than in the tail. As a result, more meteors enter the atmosphere than usual.
“These are very small bodies. The size of a fraction of a gram, consisting mainly of stones. Particles rush through the atmosphere at a very high speed - up to 70 kilometers per second. At such a speed, any substance, even metal, simply begins to evaporate and glow brightly at the same time, ”explains a graduate student of the Department of Astrophysics of the State Astronomical Institute of Moscow State University. Lomonosov Dmitry Kolesnikov.
The speed is so high - it is 200 times the speed of the fastest aircraft - that it is pointless to observe the Perseids through a telescope. Astrophysicists simply do not have time to fix meteors. So they use a wide angle camera. And if meteors are not dangerous for humans, then such studies help predict and prevent accidents in space.
“These particles can break solar panels or damage the skin, thereby damaging spacecraft,” says Anna Kartasheva, junior researcher at the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
No spacecraft has been harmed by the current Perseid shower. The peak of meteor activity was today at three o'clock in the morning. And now it's on the decline. However, it will be possible to observe flashes in the sky until August 18.
The Perseid Starfall grants wishes!
Look at the night sky and you can see one of the biggest and brightest starfalls in the last few years! The "culprit" of the celebration is the Perseid meteor shower. Weather permitting, you can watch the meteor shower at least every night until August 22, 2016. However, expect the peak from August 12 to 13. Astronomers say that this night the sky will be illuminated by a real star shower... it's time to get magical!
Starfall of desires
How would you react to a shooting star? Wish! And for the second? Wish! And on the twelfth? Wish! What about twenty-two? ... Oh, I would have dried up after the first ten. And all why? Many different wants leads to a big mess. As you "dream" everything, then you yourself will not understand what it was. There is neither confidence in the fulfillment of desires, nor an inner feeling that now it will definitely come true. How to be?
Make one wish! Sit comfortably and gaze at the stars. Turn each star into a magical meditation for one dream. For example, a star - "I love and be loved", another star - "we are so happy together", another star - "I melt from his kisses", again a star - "we talk about everything in the world!" etc. Enjoy the dream, immerse yourself in it. And give its embodiment to starfall ...
By the way, while the Perseid is in the sky, on another night you can do magic again on this or already on another dream.
Money Starfall
Everything that falls from the sky, let it fall into our hands and ... bring money big and small. And what, and to starfall is easily applicable. Did you see that the star fell? We supply a palm and three pockets, saying: "To the money!" Did you see another? Lost the second pocket.
Believe me, money will suddenly materialize in your reality very soon!
Victorious Sandals
Have you read ancient Greek myths? If not, then you definitely heard about Zeus. So Perseus is his son. It seems that astronomers were delighted with the feat of Perseus (he saved the world from Medusa Gorgon) and they named an entire constellation after him. Yes, we are talking about the very constellation Perseus, from which the Perseids are already visible.
Do you know what detail I remember most from his feat? Winged sandals! There, of course, he also had another magical arsenal, but there would be no sandals if he had not defeated the Gorgon. So maybe this is exactly what we need?
In general, if you need to win in anything (competitions, interviews, exams, etc.), charge your sandals!
Fortunately, summer is in the yard, which means there should be no problems with sandals. It is very important that they are yours, and old or new, flowered or plain - it does not matter.
On any night of the Perseid Starfall, tie a thread (rope, lace) to each sandal and hang them by these threads on the same clothesline (beam, branch, etc.) on the balcony (outdoors). And say: "Perseus won and I win!" Let the sandals absorb this magical winged effect until the morning.
In order to activate the magic for yourself, be sure to put on and walk around in your "winged" sandals the next day. At the same time, mentally scroll through your victory in your head for at least a few minutes. For example, you can imagine how you passed an exam or successfully passed an interview. And then boldly go "to battle" ("you can go there" in any other shoes).
Useful information: according to experts, it can take about 30 minutes for human eyes to get used to the dark. Therefore, if you do not see anything, then you need time to "calibrate", that is, look at the sky and wait.
Anastasia Volkova for the site
The Perseid meteor shower is the brightest meteor shower of the year. We can observe it in the sky as the Earth passes through the dense dust trail of Comet Swift-Tuttle. As a rule, the Perseid stream is 40-60 "shooting stars" per hour. But this year 2016 will be special - a section of the meteor shower will pass near the Earth, which, thanks to the influence of Jupiter, has moved much closer to the Earth's orbit than usual. Experts predict that the number of meteors in 2016 may exceed 200 per hour! This means that by raising our eyes to the sky we can see from 3 to 5 "shooting stars" every minute. It will be a real stellar rain!
Where and when you can see the Perseid meteor shower in August 2016
The Perseid meteor shower will peak in the evening and night of August 12-13, 2016. The maximum number of particles burning in the atmosphere (more than 200 per hour) can be observed in the entire northern hemisphere from 18:00 to 20:00 on August 12. So
For those who are a little familiar with astronomy, we recommend finding the Perseus constellation in the sky - it is from this part of the sky that "shooting stars" will rush to the earth in August 2016. Finding the Perseus constellation is quite easy. To begin with, let's find the well-known bucket of the Big Dipper in the sky (in the evenings in August it "hangs" low in the northwestern part of the sky). Further, through the two extreme stars of the Ursa Major bucket, we draw a mental straight line upwards, where we find the Polar Star. Let's remember its position in the sky and return to the big ladle, to any star of its handle. Now we draw a mental line from any star of the handle of the Ursa Major bucket through the North Star and find a constellation similar in shape to the Latin letter W. This is the constellation of Cassiopeia, which is adjacent to Perseus. The constellation Perseus itself is just below.
You don't need any equipment to observe starfall, on the contrary, binoculars reduce your field of view and will only be a hindrance. For observations, you need to find a place located away from bright light sources and giving the maximum view of the sky.
How to make a wish during a starfall
Shooting stars have always been shrouded in a huge number of different signs and superstitions. Each of us knows from childhood that when a star falls, it is necessary to make the most secret desire, and it will certainly come true. Legends that have come down to us say that every person in the world has his own star. It lights up in the sky when a person is born, and after his death, she hurries to fall to the ground and go out. At this moment, she fulfills any desire made by a person. Well, the Perseid meteor shower gives us the opportunity to make even a few wishes on these magical August nights.
So how do you make a wish on a shooting star to make it come true? The first and most important rule is to make a wish alone and not tell anyone about what you have made. Go out alone to a quiet place, stand facing the east and look up at the sky, looking for a shooting star. The most important thing is to notice it, and then say what you have planned to yourself, if you are sure that no one hears your desire, you can do it out loud.
Even now, when science has long explained that a shooting star is not a star at all, but just a speck of dust burning in the atmosphere, wishes very often do come true. After all, in order for the plan to come true, you just need to think about it correctly and add a little heavenly magic and a lot of faith. Believe in the best omens - and may your good wishes come true!
In the coming August nights, "star showers" from the constellation Perseus await residents of the entire Northern Hemisphere of the Earth
The peak of activity of the Perseid meteor shower falls on August 12-13, on this night the number of meteors reaches 100 per hour, but in 2016, according to the forecasts of the IMO (International Meteor Organization), up to 150 meteors per hour are expected, according to the Science and Life magazine website.
As the publication points out, there are several reasons for the increase in activity. First, the Earth will cross the dense part of the Perseid stream, which has been shifted into Earth's orbit by the influence of Jupiter. Jupiter exerted a gravitational influence on the particles of the cometary remnant, pushing the Perseid stream a little closer to Earth's orbit. Such a burst of Perseid activity, caused by the influence of Jupiter, occurs once every 11-12 years.
Secondly, the Earth will come close to the two trails of the progenitor comet Perseids, which were ejected to it in 1862 and 1479. This will cause two bursts of Perseid maximum activity. The first, caused by the trail of the 1862 comet, is expected on August 12 at 01:34 Moscow time, the second on August 12 at 02:23 Moscow time, it is caused by the trail of the 1479 comet.
“The Perseid meteor shower has been known to mankind for about two thousand years. The first mention of them is contained in the Chinese historical annals dating back to 36 AD, when "more than a hundred meteors flared up in the morning." It is officially believed that the discoverer of the annual Perseid meteor shower is the Belgian mathematician, astronomer, meteorologist Adolf Ketele, who reported this spectacle in August 1835. The number of meteors flashing during each hour was first calculated in 1839. The maximum number of meteors in one hour then amounted to 160 pieces, ”says astronomer, employee of the Moscow Planetarium Lyudmila Koshman.
The origin of the Perseids is the passage of the Earth through a plume of dust particles released by Comet Swift-Tuttle. The comet takes 133 years to complete its orbit. Each time, approaching the maximum to the Sun, the comet melts, due to which there is an increase in the number of cometary particles in its plume. Accordingly, the years closest to this event delight earthly observers with a sharp increase in the number of “shooting stars”. The name Perseids comes from the name of the constellation Perseus, from which, if you look closely, these "shooting stars" fly out. The region where the meteors come out is called the radiant of the meteor shower.
Astronomers remind that no astronomical instruments are needed to observe a meteor shower - anyone can enjoy the night starry spectacle of summer. The Perseids are white meteors that sharply trace the sky. The glow of some especially bright meteors lasts up to several seconds.
The inhabitants of the Earth will be able to watch a beautiful and exciting star show on Friday. The Perseid shower that graces the skies every August will be denser than usual this year, making the spectacle truly mesmerizing. Residents of all countries of the Northern Hemisphere will be able to enjoy the astronomical phenomenon with the naked eye. The main thing is to choose an open space so that tall buildings and trees do not interfere with the view.
Star rain traditionally falls on planet Earth in August. And you can observe this phenomenon without optical instruments. The main thing is to get away from the illuminated streets of the city and be patient, reports.
The Perseids are a meteor shower that has been known since antiquity - almost two thousand years. It is reported by Chinese, Japanese, and European chronicles. As soon as it was not called - "Rain of Fire" or "Tears of St. Lawrence", since in Italy the August meteor shower coincides with the celebration of this saint's day. And only in the 19th century did scientists explain what meteors really are.
"At a high speed, about 60 kilometers per second, a grain of sand, small, smaller than a thimble, flies into the Earth's atmosphere. But it flies very quickly and therefore, colliding with our air, it quickly evaporates, turns into a cloud of plasma. But we see this plasma from a distance about 100 or even 150 kilometers. Imagine what a bright flash, "explained Vladimir Surdin, senior researcher at the Sternberg State Astronomical Institute, associate professor at the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University.
These grains of sand are particles of comets. Their icy bodies heat up, approaching the Sun, and together with steam, all the fine dust is carried away from the surface, forming that very romantic plume.
"Along the comet's orbit, these particles fill a kind of tube. And when our Earth passes through this tube, naturally, there are more particles, and they hit the Earth's atmosphere more often," said Vladimir Surdin.
Earthlings observe the Perseids when the orbit of our planet falls into a meteor cloud - the tail of the most beautiful of the comets called Swift-Tuttle. At the same time, meteors are not at all dangerous. Unlike large and heavy meteorites, such particles simply do not reach the earth, they burn out at a high altitude. And in general, in recent years, meteors have not been very pampering earthlings.
“Last year we observed, went to the Ryazan region, to the black zone. And at the peak we lay all night in sleeping bags and counted, did not sleep. We had a record there, in my opinion, of 17 meteors per hour,” said the director of the observatory Sokolniki Park Rustam Bekbulatov.
This year, scientists promise, the star shower should be especially bright - up to 150 meteors per hour. Astronomers around the world are already watching him and even offer, if clouds and precipitation prevented seeing the Perseids, to join the international video broadcast. The maximum activity, by the way, is expected on the night of August 12-13, then the intensity will decrease. However, if you're lucky, you can swim in the starry rain and make wishes until the end of the last summer month.
Julia Bogomanshina, Ilya Ushakov, "TV Center".
