Planets

Meteors & Meteorites: Perseids

(docs/20359334789_3c86a6e701_o.jpg)
In this ten-second exposure, a meteor streaks across the sky above Washington, D.C.
during the annual Perseids meteor shower, Thursday, 13 Aug 2015, in Arlington, Va.
Image Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Fast Facts
Comet of Origin: 109P/Swift-Tuttle
Radiant: Constellation Perseus
Active: 17 July -- 24 August 2016
Peak Activity: 11 -- 12 Aug 2016
Peak Activity Meteor Count: Up to 100 meteors per hour
Meteor Velocity: 37 miles (59 km) per second

2016 Perseids Forecast

August's Perseid meteor shower peaks for U.S. observers just after sunrise on
Friday morning, August 12. It should also put on a great show this year for
observers in Europe, with some predictions showing an outburst of up to 150 or
200 meteors at the peak, according to NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke. U.S.
observers will get a great view of the ramp up to the peak between moonset and
sunrise on Friday morning, August 12.

Will there be an outburst or a second peak as in some past years? Watch and see.
This 2015 Perseid rate graph (compiled from data received from over 350
observers in 37 countries) shows rates of up to 20 meteors per hour the week
before the peak. Rates increase to 40 per hour up to the day of the peak, making
the Perseids the best public-friendly shower of the year. The maximum peak is very
short, lasting just a few hours from 13:00 to 15:30 UTC the morning of August 12.
That's 6 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time and 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Eastern
Daylight Time, well after the sun has risen in the U.S.
Meteor rates are not the actual number of meteors you will see in a given hour, but
rather the number you will see if the radiant of the shower is overhead (the zenith),
your skies are dark, your eyesight is perfect, and you can see all of the celestial
sphere above your head. It's a way to standardize all observations from different
sky and observer conditions around the world.

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2015 Perseids meteor rates

A good number of meteors should be visible radiating from Perseus every night
from July 17 to August 24. However, you'll see fewer meteors before and after the
peak from 13:00 - 15:30 UTC. Look toward the familiar constellations Cassiopeia
and Perseus in the northeast. They begin to rise after sunset, but more meteors
will be visible when they are higher in the sky several hours later. The best meteor

watching will start at midnight, and will be better still after moonset an hour later. It
will extend to when dawn brightens the sky (before 5 a.m. local time) on the
morning of August 12. The peak is still a few hours away for U.S. observers,
favoring observers in Europe, but increased rates will be visible from a dark sky
away from city lights. Rates will ramp up but not reach peak from the U.S.
If you want to observe the shower at a more comfortable hour before midnight,
just look away from the moon, or sit in a place where the moon is blocked.
Dedicated observers with a camera mounted on their telescope may capture the
moon's Earth-lit night side and may catch flashes due to Perseid meteoroid
impacts on its northern hemisphere.

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Lots to see: Look north for meteors; south for planets and the moon.

About the Meteor Shower

The Perseids, which peak during mid-August, are considered the best meteor
shower of the year. With very fast and bright meteors, Perseids frequently leave
long "wakes" of light and color behind them as they streak through Earth's
atmosphere. The Perseids are one of the most plentiful showers (50-100 meteors
seen per hour) and occur with warm summer nighttime weather, allowing sky
watchers to easily view them.

Perseids are also known for their fireballs. Fireballs are larger explosions of light
and color that can persist longer than an average meteor streak. This is due to the
fact that fireballs originate from larger particles of cometary material. Fireballs are
also brighter, with apparent magnitudes greater than -3.
Viewing Tips
The Perseids are best viewed in the Northern Hemisphere during the pre-dawn
hours, though at times it is possible to view meteors from this shower as early as
10 p.m.
Find an area well away from city
or street lights, and if you want,
set up where you are shadowed
from the moon's glare before it
sets. Come prepared with a
sleeping bag, blanket or lawn
chair. Face whatever direction
you like, the one unobstructed by
trees, buildings or moonlight.
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Look up, taking in as much of the
Where to look for Perseids - North.
sky as possible. If you have a
group, each person should look in different parts of the sky. After about 30
minutes in the dark, your eyes will adapt, and you will begin to see fainter objects,
including meteors. Be patient; the show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of
time to catch a glimpse.
Where Do Meteors Come From?
Meteors come from leftover comet particles and bits from broken asteroids. When
comets come around the sun, they leave a dusty trail behind them. Every year Earth
passes through these debris trails, which allows the bits to collide with our
atmosphere and disintegrate to create fiery and colorful streaks in the sky.
The Comet
The pieces of space debris that interact with our atmosphere to create the
Perseids originate from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. Swift-Tuttle takes 133 years to
orbit the sun once. It was Giovanni Schiaparelli who realized in 1865 that this
comet was the source of the Perseids. Comet Swift-Tuttle last visited the inner
solar system in 1992.

Comet Swift-Tuttle was discovered in 1862 by Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle.
Swift-Tuttle is a large comet: its nucleus is 16 miles (26 km) across. (This is
almost twice the size of the object hypothesized to have led to the demise of the
dinosaurs.)
The Radiant
Their radiant -- the point in the sky from which the Perseids appear to come from -is the constellation Perseus. This is also where we get the name for the shower:
Perseids. However, the constellation for which a meteor shower is named only
serves to aid viewers in determining which shower they are viewing on a given
night. The constellation is not the source of the meteors.
Determine Meteor Shower Activity Where You Live
NASA Meteor Estimator (http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/estimator.html)

Meteors & Meteorites Images

more

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Perseid Meteor Shower 2015

Mars Iron Meteorite

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found an iron meteorite, the first meteorite of
any type ever identified on another planet. The pitted, basketball-size object is mostly made of
iron and nickel according to readings from spectrometers on the rover. Only a small fraction of
the meteorites fallen on Earth are similarly metal-rich. Others are rockier. As an example, the
meteorite that blasted the famous Meteor Crater in Arizona is similar in composition. "This is a
huge surprise, though maybe it shouldn't have been," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell
University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science instruments on Opportunity and its
twin, Spirit. The meteorite, dubbed "Heat Shield Rock," sits near debris of Opportunity's heat
shield on the surface of Meridiani Planum, a cratered flatland that has been Opportunity's home
since the robot landed on Mars nearly one year ago. "I never thought we would get to use our
instruments on a rock from someplace other than Mars," Squyres said. "Think about where an
iron meteorite comes from: a destroyed planet or planetesimal that was big enough to
differentiate into a metallic core and a rocky mantle." Rover-team scientists are wondering
whether some rocks that Opportunity has seen atop the ground surface are rocky meteorites.
"Mars should be hit by a lot more rocky meteorites than iron meteorites," Squyres said. "We've
been seeing lots of cobbles out on the plains, and this raises the possibility that some of them
may in fact be meteorites. We may be investigating some of those in coming weeks. The key is
not what we'll learn about meteorites -- we have lots of meteorites on Earth -- but what the
meteorites can tell us about Meridiani Planum." The numbers of exposed meteorites could be

an indication of whether the plain is gradually eroding away or being built up. NASA Chief
Scientist Dr. Jim Garvin said, "Exploring meteorites is a vital part of NASA's scientific agenda,
and discovering whether there are storehouses of them on Mars opens new research
possibilities, including further incentives for robotic and then human-based sample-return
missions. Mars continues to provide unexpected science 'gold,' and our rovers have proven the
value of mobile exploration with this latest finding." Initial observation of Heat Shield Rock from
a distance with Opportunity's miniature thermal emission spectrometer suggested a metallic
composition and raised speculation last week that it was a meteorite. The rover drove close
enough to use its Moessbauer and alpha particle X-ray spectrometers, confirming the meteorite
identification over the weekend. Opportunity and Spirit successfully completed their primary
three-month missions on Mars in April 2004. NASA has extended their missions twice because
the rovers have remained in good condition to continue exploring Mars longer than anticipated.
They have found geological evidence of past wet environmental conditions that might have
"been hospitable to life. Opportunity has driven a total of 2.10 kilometers (1.30 miles). Minor
mottling from dust has appeared in images from the rover's rear hazard-identification camera
since Opportunity entered the area of its heat-shield debris, said Jim Erickson of NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., rover project manager. The rover team plans to begin
driving Opportunity south toward a circular feature called ""Vostok"" within about a week. Spirit
has driven a total of 4.05 kilometers (2.52 miles). It has been making slow progress uphill
toward a ridge on ""Husband Hill"" inside Gusev Crater.

Martian Meteorite 3
July 20, 2004
National Science Foundation, Arlington, Va. Smithsonian Institution, Washington
Western Reserve University, Cleveland
RELEASE: 04-232
NEW MARTIAN METEORITE
FOUND IN ANTARCTICA
While rovers and orbiting spacecraft scour Mars searching for clues to its past, researchers
have uncovered another piece of the red planet in the most inhospitable place on Earth -Antarctica.
The new specimen was found by a field party from the U.S. Antarctic Search for Meteorites
program (ANSMET) on Dec. 15, 2003, on an ice field in the Miller Range of the Transantarctic
Mountains, roughly 750 km (466 miles) from the South Pole. This 715.2-gram (1.6-pound) black
rock, officially designated MIL 03346, was one of 1358 meteorites collected by ANSMET during
the 2003-2004 austral summer.
Discovery of this meteorite occurred during the second full field season of a cooperative effort
funded by NASA and supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to enhance recovery
of rare meteorite types in Antarctica, in the hopes new martian samples would be found.
Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History involved in
classification of Antarctic finds said the mineralogy, texture and the oxidized nature of the rock
are unmistakably martian.
The new specimen is the seventh recognized member of a group of martian meteorites called
the nakhlites, named after the first known specimen that fell in Nakhla, Egypt, in 1911. Like the
other martian meteorites, MIL 03346 is a piece of the red planet that can be studied in detail in
the laboratory, providing a critical "reality check" for use in interpreting the wealth of images
and data being returned by the spacecraft currently exploring Mars. Following the existing
protocols of the U.S. Antarctic meteorite program, scientists from around the world will be
invited to request samples of the new specimen for their own detailed research. Nakhlites are
significant among the known martian meteorites for several reasons.
Thought to have originated within thick lava flows that crystallized on Mars approximately 1.3
billion years ago, and sent to Earth by a meteorite impact about 11 million years ago, the
nakhlites are among the older known martian meteorites. As a result they bear witness to
significant segments of the volcanic and environmental history of Mars. The U.S. Antarctic
Meteorite program is a cooperative effort jointly supported by NSF, NASA and the Smithsonian
Institution. Antarctic field work is supported by grants from NASA and NSF to Case Western
Reserve University, Cleveland; initial examination and curation of recovered Antarctic
meteorites is supported by NASA at the astromaterials curation facilities at Johnson Space
Center in Houston; and initial characterization and long-term curation of Antarctic meteorite
samples is supported by NASA and the Smithsonian Institution at the National Museum of
Natural History in Washington.

Martian Meteorite 2

This map of Antarctica shows some of the places where meteorites have been found in
abundance. Each year, the U.S. sponsors ANSMET (the Antarctic Search for Meteorites), a
group of meteorite hunters. Money for the hunts comes from the National Science Foundation
and NASA. The first ANSMET team joined Japanese explorers to hunt for meteorites in
Antarctica in 1976. The Japanese had started collecting in Antarctica in 1973 and retrieved 983
meteorites in just three expeditions. More than 7500 meteorite samples have been collected by
ANSMET expeditions since then. By comparison, only about 2500 meteorites have ever been
found outside Antarctica.

http://www.virtualmicroscope.org/rock_sample?asset=alh84001/index.html?
x=5.18&y=6.36&zoom=0&s=0
http://www.virtualmicroscope.org/content/martian-meteorites
http://www.virtualmicroscope.org/rock_sample?asset=milo3346/index.html?
x=8.78&y=6.1&zoom=0&s=0

important Martian Meteorite found in the North-West African desert with the name NWA 7034,
which has the nickname Black Beauty.

Andy TIndle has combined x-ray map of the sample with the thin section images with the new
image available by selecting the ELE button. The new image was created using x-ray maps
produced in an electron microprobe, and combining false colour x-ray maps of phosphorous,
magnesium and aluminium.
Take a look you can now easily spot phosphates (phosphorous - red), plagioclase (Al rich
many of the blue areas), pyroxene (Mg-rich commonly green), and the metal rich grains that
appear white because they contain none of the elements mapped.
Further info:
NWA 7034 (otherwise known as Black Beauty) is unique from other martian meteorites and
was found in the Sahara Desert in 2011. It is 2 billion years old. Its martian origin was
confirmed by pyroxene analyses (Fe/Mn ratios) and noble gas measurements that match
measurements of the martian atmosphere. This meteorite is a breccia with a basaltic bulk
composition and initially classified as a porphyritic basaltic monomict breccia. Clasts
containing a wide variety of textures and include gabbros, quenched melts, and oxide rich
reaction spherules. Other portions of the breccia contain plutonic lithic clasts such as
monzonites and norites, basalts, and impact melt clasts. This is a very heterogeneous breccia!
Initial studies of NWA 7034 determined that the meteorites bulk composition coincides with
the composition of the average martian crust determined from mission data. This bulk
composition also matches some of the rocks and soils measured in Gusev Crater by the Mars
Exploration Rovers (MER) and in fact, this meteorite represents the strongest link between a
martian meteorite and the geochemistry of the martian surface determined by remote sensing.
A. R. Santos, C. B. Agee, F. M. McCubbin, C. K. Shearer, P. V. Burger, R. Tartese & M. Anand
(2015) Petrology of igneous clasts in Northwest Africa 7034: Implications for the petrologic
diversity of the martian crust. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 157, 56-85.
http://www.virtualmicroscope.org/rock_sample?asset=blackb/index.html?
x=7.7&y=7.04&zoom=0&s=3
NWA 7034
Alh84001
ANSMET
MIL 03346