One of the biggest meteor showers recorded in Brazil will have its peak in the early hours of this Wednesday (14). About 100 meteors per hour are expected to fall. Fragments of celestial bodies, such as asteroids, meteors can be seen with the naked eye in the sky across Brazil.
Physicist Claudio Bevilacqua, from the Astronomical Observatory of UFRGS (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul), explains that the forecast is between 100 and 120 meteors per hour and that they can reach 35 kilometers per second.
The forecast for the start of the meteor shower this morning is around 10 pm this Tuesday (13), when the constellation Gemini is born, which gives rise to its name: Geminids.
The peak of the phenomenon occurs between 0h and 1h on Wednesday, the ideal time to view the brightest meteors. He points out that the brightness of the fragments is impaired by light pollution in cities.
Therefore, the best observation is made in darker places, away from lights, such as the countryside. Even so, the phenomenon can be seen with the naked eye in all states of Brazil.
Researcher Carlos Fernando Jung, responsible for the Heller & Jung Space Observatory, located in Taquara, in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre, says that the phenomenon happens every December, when the Earth enters the same orbit as these fragments.
They are then attracted by the Earth and some manage to pass through the atmosphere, forming the meteor shower. This one, which has been falling for two weeks now, originates from Comet Phaethon.
Video: Meteor shower seen from observatory in RS
After the dawn peak, the meteor shower loses strength, but it still happens for the next few days, until Christmas.
Jung recalls that 95% of meteors are extinguished when entering our atmosphere. Those that make it through and reach the ground can be of very different sizes, weighing several kilos.
“They can fall anywhere. There is still no way to predict this fall. Only large bodies, such as asteroids, can have predicted falls”, points out the researcher.
The meteors predicted for this morning, however, should not reach the ground. “They usually burn up when they rub against the atmosphere and hardly ever reach the ground”, observes Bevilacqua.
In cities where the sky is covered by clouds, it is possible to follow the meteor shower through the observatory’s real-time transmission.
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