APOD: Lyrid Meteors from the Constellation... (2020 May 12)

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APOD: Lyrid Meteors from the Constellation... (2020 May 12)

Post by APOD Robot » Tue May 12, 2020 4:06 am

Image Lyrid Meteors from the Constellation Lyra

Explanation: Where are all of these meteors coming from? In terms of direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of Small Harp (Lyra). That is why the famous meteor shower that peaks every April is known as the Lyrids -- the meteors all appear to came from a radiant toward Lyra. In terms of parent body, though, the sand-sized debris that makes up the Lyrid meteors come from Comet Thatcher. The comet follows a well-defined orbit around our Sun, and the part of the orbit that approaches Earth is superposed in front of Lyra. Therefore, when Earth crosses this orbit, the radiant point of falling debris appears in Lyra. Featured here, a composite image containing over 33 meteors (can you find them all?) from last month's Lyrid meteor shower shows several bright meteors that streaked over a shore of Seč Lake in the Czech Republic. Also visible are the bright stars Vega and Altair, the planet Jupiter, and the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy.

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orin stepanek
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Re: APOD: Lyrid Meteors from the Constellation... (2020 May 12)

Post by orin stepanek » Tue May 12, 2020 10:52 am

Lyrids_Horalek_960_annotated.jpg
I find it amazing that a grain of sand sized meteor can
put on such a light show! 8-)
Orin

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Re: APOD: Lyrid Meteors from the Constellation... (2020 May 12)

Post by Chris Peterson » Tue May 12, 2020 1:29 pm

orin stepanek wrote: Tue May 12, 2020 10:52 am Lyrids_Horalek_960_annotated.jpg

I find it amazing that a grain of sand sized meteor can
put on such a light show! 8-)
KE = 1/2 mv2.

The mass may be small, on the order of a gram, but the velocity is huge, 48 km/s, and that term is squared.
Chris

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Re: APOD: Lyrid Meteors from the Constellation... (2020 May 12)

Post by neufer » Tue May 12, 2020 6:53 pm

Chris Peterson wrote: Tue May 12, 2020 1:29 pm
orin stepanek wrote: Tue May 12, 2020 10:52 am
I find it amazing that a grain of sand sized meteor can put on such a light show! 8-)
KE = 1/2 mv2.

The mass may be small, on the order of a gram, but the velocity is huge, 48 km/s, and that term is squared.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=sand wrote:
<<sand (n.) from Proto-Germanic *sandam (source also of Old Norse sandr, Old Frisian sond, Middle Dutch sant, Dutch zand, German Sand), (source also of Greek psammos "sand;" Latin sabulum "coarse sand," source of Italian sabbia, French sable). Historically, the line between sand and gravel cannot be distinctly drawn. Used figuratively in Old English in reference to innumerability and instability. General Germanic, but not attested in Gothic, which used in this sense malma, related to Old High German melm "dust," the first element of the Swedish city name Malmö (the second element meaning "island"), and to Latin molere "to grind.">>
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Ann
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Re: APOD: Lyrid Meteors from the Constellation... (2020 May 12)

Post by Ann » Tue May 12, 2020 7:13 pm

It's a very beautiful picture. Love the reflections of the stars in the lake. Superb colors. Note the blue color of bright star Vega, which almost always looks blue in color photographs.

From my latitude in southern Sweden, Scorpius just barely peeks its head (down to Tau Scorpii) above the tree line of the park where I live, and it only does so in April, at about four o'clock in the morning. Anyway, to me it is "strange" to see a star as northerly as Vega in the same photographic frame as northern Scorpius.

The APOD is beautiful, that's for sure.

Ann
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