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Dark Sky Park: Year Of The Meteor Shower

    

IPR: Now that we're nearly one week into the New Year can you share what the celestial highlights are for the coming year?

MARY: Some of the most popular celestial events in any year are the meteor showers and this is because we can predict when they'll occur but we can't always predict what we'll see. There are actually three dominant meteor showers that most people are familiar with: The Quadrantids, which occur here in January, the Perseids, which occur in August, and the Geminids which happen in mid-December every year. 

This year, only the Quadrantids occur when there is little or no moonlight in the sky so this is predicted to be the best shower of the year and it peaks overnight around this time, especially January 3rd and 4th.

IPR: What's the story of this meteor shower?

MARY: This particular shower gets its name from a constellation that is no longer recognized, which went by the name "QuadransMuralis" which translates as "wall quadrant" which was a mechanism used in the 17th century for measuring the altitude of a star according to the angle of telescope. Over time, this instrument and its attendant constellation fell out of use but to find the radiant, or seeming center point of the meteor shower, look Northeast after 11 pm near the handle region of the Big Dipper. The arc of the handle points to the bright star Arcturus in the constellation Bootes and between the handle of the dipper and the constellation Bootes you will find the radiant. When this is above the horizon, then you will know the meteors are coming.

IPR: Are there other phenomena you are watching out for?

MARY: Yes, though it's one that we can't see, it's one we must just know about. It's what's called "perihelion" which means "closest to the Sun." So while we've been bearing frigid cold temperatures here in the North, the Earth is coming to the place on its orbital path that brings it closest to the Sun.

What fascinates me about this isn't so much that we're at our coldest when Earth is nearest its "heat source," rather it's the minds that figured this out. So, first you have to figure out that the Earth is moving, which we credit to Nicolas Copernicus, then you have to figure out that while it's moving it's following a path that has a particular shape. This we credit to Johannes Kepler from the 17th century. Kepler lived at a time when there wasn't the same distinction between astrology and astronomy as there is today. Rather, the division during his time was between astronomy as a branch of mathematics from physics which was a branch of "natural philosophy." 

Kepler saw in the motion of the planets a beautiful, living harmony that is a great way to start the New Year: "When things are in order, if the cause cannot be deduced from the motion of the elements or the composition of matter, it is quite possibly a cause possessing a mind."