Perseids 2022: When will we see the rain of shooting stars in Greece?

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The spectacular summer shower of “shooting stars” will almost coincide with the superfull moon, making it difficult to observe the Perseids.

The conquering Perseidsthe most impressive summer rain of “shooting stars”, will peak again this year in the heart of August, specifically on Thursday and especially Friday evenings, in the night sky of our country and in general of the northern hemisphere.

In fact, this year the peak of the said meteors will almost coincide with the last of them this year’s super full moons (04:36 Greek time on Friday), which will make it more difficult to observe the Perseids. The moon will again be closer to Earth than usual (the full moon will almost coincide with perigee of the Moon) and thus will appear somewhat larger and brighter, “blowing out” many “shooting stars”, except for the brightest ones.

The Perseids are spectacular showers of destruction, as their ‘shooting stars’ are fast and bright, usually possessing long fiery ‘tails’. The Perseids “give” more bright meteors than any other meteor shower of the year. Their record was in 1993, when they recorded about 300 meteors per hour, while they usually “give” 50 to 60 per hour. This year due to the full moon, according to NASA, a maximum of 10 to 20 are expected to be visible per hour.

They appear in almost all parts of the sky and not in one particular, although they seem to come mainly from the northeast, from the region of the constellation Perseus, from which they get their name. The meteors begin to fall sparsely from about July 17th, gradually thicken and last until August 24th. The “show” begins shortly after sunset, but the closer to the time it sets, the more likely it is to see these particular “shooting stars” anywhere in the sky with the naked eye.

The Perseids – first recorded by Chinese astronomers in AD 36 – are caused by the dust particles left behind by the massive tail, tens of millions of kilometers long, of comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle crossing its orbit land. The comet, which was discovered in 1862 by astronomers Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle (after whom it is named), has a massive nucleus about 26 kilometers in diameter.

The comet in question is the largest known celestial body to pass by Earth at regular intervals and takes about 133 years to make a complete orbit around the Sun. Its last close pass by Earth was in 1992 and the next one is expected in 2125, and it does not appear to pose a threat to our planet in the foreseeable future.

Its meteors, which usually weigh less than a gram, enter Earth’s atmosphere at nearly 60 km per second and ignite at an altitude of about 130 km, when they first become visible to observers. As they approach the ground at high speed, they are broken up by friction and overheating (1,650 degrees Celsius), at a height of more than 80 kilometers from the surface of the Earth, leaving behind bright trails.

The next full moon will occur on September 10, 2022, while the next supermoon will occur on August 3, 2023.

RES-EMP

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