“If
the debris from SW 3 was traveling more than 220 miles [354 kilometers]
per hour when it separated from the comet, we might see a nice meteor
shower,” Bill Cooke, who leads NASA’s meteoroid environment office at
the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said
in a statement (opens in new tab).
“If
the debris had slower ejection speeds,” Cooke added, “then nothing will
make it to Earth and there will be no meteors from this comet.“ …
The Tau Herculids
meteor shower may light up the skies over North America on May 30 and
31. Or it may not. There’s a chance we might pass through the thickest
part of the comet fragment that is creating the debris, in which case
the night skies will be filled with shooting stars.
If the shower happens in the right way, it could lead to a
spectacular “meteor storm,” in which Earth passes through an especially
thick forest of space rocks, leading to up to 1,000 shooting stars per
hour, according to the Washington Post (opens in new tab). And as a bonus, the moon
will be new and the radiant, or apparent direction of the shower, is in
the high-up constellation of Hercules in the northern sky. This means
there will be a minimum of natural light pollution to contend with when
looking for shooting stars.
But the sky show is not a guarantee, NASA cautioned….
A large earthquake has struck near the Peru-Bolivia border. The U.S. Geological Survey has rated the tremor at a preliminary 7.2 magnitude.
The
quake struck at a depth of 135 miles, according to the initial survey. The shaking began at 8:02 a.m. EDT Thursday morning, according to the
USGS.
The epicenter was located in southern Peru, about 8 miles
west-northwest of the town of Azangaro. La Paz, Bolivia, is located
about 200 miles southeast of the epicenter. No damage was immediately
reported in the city. …
ALT
