SPACEWEATHER RADIO: The US Air Force Space Surveillance Radar is scanning the skies over North America. When a Perseid meteor passes overhead--"ping"--there is an echo. Tune into Spaceweather Radio for a live audio feed from the radar facility. GOOD SHOW: Veteran meteor watchers say the Perseids of 2009 were the best in years. One look at this photo shows why: NASA astronomers Danielle Moser and Bill Cooke made the composite of 130+ Perseids that flew over the Marshall Space Flight Center on August 12th. "We recorded a bright meteor or fireball every 3 minutes--a fabulous rate," says Cooke. Their meteor detection system consists of two cameras separated by 100 miles--one in Alabama and one in Georgia. The wide baseline allows Cooke and his team to triangulate the trajectory of meteoroids with some accuracy. Here is a geographic map of the Perseids they saw. "The stars really did fall on Alabama!" he says. Worldwide, observers counted as many as 200 Perseids per hour. Some of the prettiest may be found in the photo gallery. UPDATED: 2009 Perseid Photo Gallery [Science@NASA: The Perseids are Coming, Horse Flies and Meteors] PERFECT NIGHT: Robert Postma of Fort Simpson, Canada, went outside on August 12th to see the Perseids and got more than he bargained for. "I was treated to a triple whammy," he says. "The auroras came out, noctilucent clouds lit up the horizon, and a meteor streaked across the sky. It was a perfect night." And an unlikely one.... The Perseids and, to a lesser degree, the noctilucent clouds were expected. But where did the auroras come from? There was no solar flare or gust of solar wind to spark the display. It appears to have been an unprovoked spasm of geomagnetic activity, which appeared on its own schedule, in the middle of the best meteor shower in years. Sometimes it just pays to be outside. Keep looking up! 2009 Noctilucent Photo Gallery [previous years: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003] July 2009 Aurora Gallery [previous Julys: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003] Explore the Sunspot Cycle |