Sun rises at 5:50am
Sun sets at 6:47pm
Moon phase: Fourth Quarter, Waning Crescent
Moon rises at 3:40am
Moon sets at 4:05pm
Falling Stars
This weekend, watch for the Delta Aquariids, a meteor shower visible from mid-July to mid-August each year with peak activity in late July. And since the moon this weekend is waning towards new right now, it’s a very good time to watch for falling stars.
Meteor showers are regular events, they happen when the Earth crosses the debris-strewn path of a comet. Comet nearing the sun will cast bits off as it warms and this debris may interact with the atmosphere. At speeds of 90,000 miles (150,000 km) per hour, the bits are burned up by friction with air molecules, thus vaporizing into what we call meteors, falling stars or shooting stars.
The Delta Aquarid meteors’ origin is not known for certain. It was long thought they came from the breakup of a comet now known as the Marsden and Kracht Sungrazing comets. More recently, astronomers are finding evidence that these “falling stars” are associated debris from Comet 96P Machholz. Discovered in 1986, this comet has quite a small orbit around the sun, and completes a revolution once every five years. It never travels farther away than the orbit of Jupiter. Whatever the original source of the Delta Aquarids, they are lovely to watch and our sky this weekend will be nice and dark due to the moon’s crescent phase.
To enjoy the meteor shower, just look up, especially when you are away from street lights. The best viewing will be from 1:00am until 5:00am, but you never know when one will streak across the sky. In general, meteor showers tend to be best after midnight, with the predawn hours often an optimum time to watch.
These will originate near the Great Square of Pegasus and the Lonely Star, Fomalhaut (see last weekend’s Night Sky column); however, since they streak across the sky, you don’t have to focus on the radiant point. Even so, the concept of a meteor shower’s radiant point is good to understanding. If you trace all the meteors backward, they appear to “radiate” out from a certain point in the sky. This is how meteor showers are named, from the region of the sky they appear to radiate out of. And this radiant point is constant year after year as we orbit the sun annually.
This particular meteor shower gets its name from the constellation Aquarius, the Water Bearer, more specifically one of its brightest stars, Delta Aquarii.
The Delta Aquarid meteor shower will continue through late July and into August, when it will actually coincide with another meteor shower, the Perseids. So for dark-sky meteor-watching before dawn, try any night between now and, say, August 12.
Thank you for keeping up with the Night Sky articles. Comments and feedback are always welcome. If you are out later on in the week, each star rises about four minutes earlier each day than written here, and the moon rises 50 minutes later. Night Sky is researched and compiled by Lisa Davis-Burnett, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
