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Credit & Copyright: Pierre Martin
Explanation:
This
year an outburst of Perseid meteors
surprised skywatchers.
The
reliable meteor shower's
peak was predicted for the night of August 12/13.
But persistent visual observers in North America were deluged with a
startling Perseid
shower outburst
a day later,
with reports of multiple meteors per minute and sometimes per second
in the early hours of August 14.
The shower radiant is high in a
dark
night sky in this composite image.
It painstakingly registers the trails of 282 Perseids captured
during the stunning outburst activity between
0650 UT (02:50am EDT) and
0900 UT (05:00am EDT) on August 14
from Westmeath Lookout, Ontario.
Of course the annual Perseid meteor shower is associated with
planet Earth's passage through dusty debris from
periodic comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle.
The 2021 outburst could have been caused by an unanticipated
encounter
with the Perseid Filament,
a denser ribbon of dust inside the broader debris zone.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Perseids
Publications with words: Perseids
See also: