My Meteor Shower Info
Meteor Showers
In earley times, people have looked up at the sky at night and have seen many small, sometimes multicolored, flames in the sky. The flames are now called meteor showers. Meteor showers are caused by cosmic debris that enters the earth's atmosphere at very high speeds. Each tim a comet moves in orbit around the sun it produces large amounts of small particles that spread out its whole orbit. When this happens, it forms something called the meteor stream. As the earth spins in its orbit it may come across these streams. This causes the particles to enter the earth's atmosphere, creating a meteor shower. The meteor showers usally acurre at the same time each year. Because meteor shower particles are all traveling in parallel paths, at the same velocity, they will all appear to radiate from a single point in the sky. The point where this happens is called the radiant point. The radiant point may vary from each persons perspective. Meteor showers are usually named for the constellation where their radiant lies at the time of the showers maximum(maximum meaning the most visible with the most meteors).
Below I have provided a table of the dates for the year 2001 meteor showers.
Annual meteor showers
Date of shower
Shower name
January 3
Quadrantids
April 22
Lyrids
May 4
Eta Aquarids
July 27
Delta Aquarids
August 12
Perseids
October 21
Orionids
November 2
Taurids
November 17
Leonids 17
December 13
Geminids
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