More than 78 Perseid fireballs since July 27, 2015.
You think that’s worrying? Well, look at how much space junk is orbiting the Earth!
[quote_box_center]Earth is entering a stream of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Peak rates of 100+ meteors per hour are expected next week when Earth approaches the heart of the debris stream. The display, however, is already underway.[/quote_box_center]
SINCE JULY 27TH, MORE THAN 78 pERSEIDS FIREBALLS HAVE BEEN RECORDED BY THE NASA’S ALL SKY FIREBALL NETWORK:
But there is something much more alarming. The following Youtube video shows “objects in Earth orbit that are currently being tracked. Approximately 95% of the objects in this illustration are orbital debris, i.e., not functional satellites.”
So are you more scared about fireballs or these rotating space debris?
Hopefully this is not representative of the profession in general. Yes, space is cold, yet how can a scientist given the recent well publicized meteor over Chelyabinsk, Russia and the many examples of meteors entering the atmosphere, burning up and exploding come to the conclusion that “they’re simply too cold” in all instances?
The strange thing about the fireballs happening ahead of the Perseid meteor shower is that so many are being listed as ” sporadic ” i.e. not knowing to be associated with any known meteor shower including extremely minor ones that most of us know nothing about. So why are so many sporadic meteors arriving? What are they associated with? One other note..There are usually asteroids listed that will arrive fairly close to Earth.Seems like every week there are one or two that get within about 20 lunar distances,,, BUT NOT for the days around late September 2015…YET we are getting all of these sporadic fireballs….something strange going on??
The Perseid meteor shower occurs every year between July 17 and August 24. The shower tends to peak around August 9-13. So we are right in it and I think we cannot say they are sporadic.
If they aren’t associated with the Perseids, they are just small to big space rocks caused by the collisions of bigger asteroids in the isolar system. Of course, sometimes there are also small space debris coming back to Earth.
Something strange? I would not think so. Just something awesome!
MP