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Eta Aquarid
Context:
The Eta Aquarid meteor shower, which has been active since April 15, will peak on May 5 and 6.
Digging Deeper:
- Eta Aquarid meteor showers originate from the Aquarius constellation.
- It is known for its rapid speed, giving it long, glowing tails that can last up to several minutes.
- It is formed when the Earth passes through the orbital plane of the Halley’s Comet, which takes 76 years to orbit the sun once.
- As per NASA, around 30-40 meteors are visbile in an hour during the peak of the meteor shower in the Southern Hemisphere.
- In the Northern Hemisphere, 10 meteors are visible per hour, due to the radiant’s location , which is the position in the sky from where the meteor shower comes.
Meteor Showers:
- A meteor shower is an astronomical event where several meteors are observed to radiate, or originate from one point in the night sky.
- They come from comets (composed of dust, rocks and ice), which are frozen leftovers from the formation of the solar system. .
- They are visible when Earth passes through the clouds of dust left behind in a comet’s orbital plane.
Meteors
A meteor is a space rock that enters Earth’s atmosphere. As it falls towards the earth, the drag of the air on the rock makes it extremely hot, due to which we see it as a “shooting star”. When the earth receives many meteors at once, it is referred to as a meteor shower. In comparison to asteroids, which are large rocks revolving around the sun, the meteors are smaller rocks.