The Perseid meteor shower is the brightest

The Perseid meteor shower is the most colorful of the stars that can be seen in the Northern Hemisphere. It is formed by the tail of a comet, which itself approaches the Earth only once in a hundred years, but through its tail our planet passes annually. And therefore every August we can observe this beautiful spectacle. Surely you are interested and want to see it! Unfortunately, we will not be able to observe the Perseid meteor shower of 2013, but there is enough Time to prepare well for the next August.

History of observations

The Perseid meteor shower was observed by people in different parts of the Earth from ancient times. The first reliable mention of it is contained in the Chinese chronicles of 36 AD, where it is written about hundreds of stars falling from the sky. Regularly similar information is found in the records of the East Asian chroniclers from the 8th to the 12th centuries AD. However, after this mention of the starfall is encountered less and less. In medieval Europe Perseid meteor shower was identified with St. Lawrence, because it was in August that the festival of his name took place in Italy.

Scientific research

In the XIX century, asteroids undertook the Perseid meteor shower. So, in 1835, the Belgian Adolf Ketle pointed first to the fact that the starfall has a strict periodicity. In 1839, the German mathematician and astronomer determined the zenith hour flow number, which was estimated at 160 meteors. Actually, from the middle of the XIX century, constant observations of the phenomenon by astronomers from around the world begin. It is interesting that in some years - 1861, 1864 - its intensity was noticeably higher than in the others. Trying to find the reasons for this fact, scientists have established that the Perseids are the offspring of one of the comets that has a long orbit of circulation around the Earth. In fact, these are parts of her tail, consisting of small stones and ice. And in the periods of its approach to our planet, accordingly, the intensity of the particles entering its atmosphere and the particles that burned there increased. This was discovered in 1867 by the Italian Giovanni Skiparelli.

The minimum activity of the stream was recorded in 1911, when only four meteors were recorded. However, after that, it again began to rise and in 1920 unexpectedly increased sharply, amounting to as much as 200 meteors per hour. In the following decades, the intensity, as a rule, did not exceed 65 meteors. Next maximum peak Was already observed in 1981. And it was associated with a new gradual approach of the comet to Earth, which occurred in December 1992. As the reader guessed, after that the activity of the meteor shower again began to decline. His anti-aircraft hour number almost never exceeded 60 meteors every hour. The maximum number of them, as a rule, falls on 11-12 August.

The meteor streams of 2013, of course, were not particularly intense, whatever they might be, being now a comet closer to Earth. How will they not reach their maximum next year. But at the same time, this starfall remains the most spectacular sight that we can observe in the Northern Hemisphere throughout the year.