By Anthony O. Miller
THIS year’s “Leonid” meteor shower promises to be “much better” than last year’s, Ioannis Fakkas, honorary president of the Cyprus Astronomical Association, assured yesterday. But then, it would have to.
The show should begin over northern Cyprus about 11pm tonight, when Earth enters the space-stone-strewn orbit of the Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, and continue until about 3am on Wednesday, Fakkas said.
But he suggested the best viewing time would be after midnight, since “the moon will have set” by then, leaving a darker sky in which to see the meteors flash as they burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Besides, Fakkas added, at 11pm the constellation Leo, namesake of the Leonid meteor shower — because the burning space stones seem to be “fired” at earth from where Leo is in the night sky — will still be below the Pendadactylos Mountain Range, out of view in the free areas.
So midnight is the soonest we can seriously start staring skyward, Fakkas said. But “there will be no best place” to view the spectacle, he added.
However, the countryside and the mountains, where city light interference is minimal, will afford the best view. As well, “you have to look in a northeast direction” to get the fullest effect of the meteor shower, Fakkas added.
This year’s extravaganza promises to be more spectacular than last year’s (which occurred on the same date), Fakkas said, because “the river of stones behind the comet is going to richer” this year than last. “There will be more rocks in the stream.”
But all is not awe and enjoyment, said Fakkas, noting that, while the meteors may well be aesthetically pleasing and astronomically interesting, “they are dangerous” to orbiting space satellites.
“These things are delicate, so if a space stone hits one, it can damage it,” Fakkas said. “The people in charge of these things are worried about them,” as Earth approaches the comet’s stone-strewn orbit, he said.
If a single, pea-sized space rock, racing many times faster than a rifle bullet at 71 kilometres per second slams into an orbiting satellite, it could destroy the spacecraft, knocking out telecommunications or navigation systems back on earth.
In fact, a collision is not necessary for a catastrophe. The magnetic fields generated by the speeding space stones can skew a satellite’s sensitive electronic gear, rendering it useless.
In either event, Internet browsers, television couch-potatoes and motorists chatting (illegally) on mobile phones while driving could all instantly become disconnected.
Fakkas said astronomers had it in mind to turn selected spacecraft away from the direction of possible impacts from the speeding meteors.
Last year, for instance, the US National Aeronautical and Space Administration (Nasa) turned the billion-dollar Hubble Space Telescope away from what was considered the most dangerous direction of possible impact.
In order to dip his own telescope into the comet’s “river of stones,” Fakkas last year climbed to a Paralimni rooftop for maximum viewing.
But last year, cloud cover kept many Cypriots from seeing anything faintly resembling any meteor shower. As well, what was billed to be 4,000 to 5,000 meteors visible per hour, turned out to peak at around 1,000 per hour — and not over Cyprus.
While Earth intersects with the rock-strewn orbit of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle every year, the actual comet approaches earth “only once every 33.2 years,” Fakkas said.
With that and the memory of last year’s less-than-stellar show in mind, Fakkas said this year, “we shall stay on the roof in Nicosia, and try to see it from there.”
