Newfound Meteor Shower May Spawn "Significant Meteor Storm" in 2014

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While the Orionid meteor shower from Halley's Comet has our full attention this weekend, recent calculations made by meteor experts suggest there's a far-greater celestial fireworks display coming to in 2014.

In May 2014 there appears to be a reasonably good chance that a new, and very significant meteor shower, will take place. At the moment, conservative forecasts suggest anywhere from 100 to 400 meteors per hour may be seen, but the actual rate could peak much higher and potentially reach "meteor storm" levels (1,000 per hour!).

The progenitor of this possible display is comet 209P/LINEAR, a periodic comet discovered on Feb. 3, 2004, by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project (LINEAR) using a 1-meter (39 inches) reflector telescope. The comet was given the permanent number 209P on Dec. 12, 2008.

As comet's go, 209P/LINEAR is small and intrinsically dim. It completes one trip around of the sun in about five years. The comet's aphelion distance (farthest point from the sun) extends out near the orbit of Jupiter and its orbit has been perturbed several times by the giant planet's gravitational pull over the past 200 years.]

Well this is interesting news!

As a photographer who loves to photograph at night I know where I will be in May of 2014!

If the storm reaches 1,000 an hour it will be quite the spectacle

I just thought I would share this with all of you because hopefully you get as excited as I was when I first heard this.

Any thoughts?

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Well that's a shame, it seems we're all not going to be around to witness it. Didn't you forget that Dec. 12, 2012 is coming up?

Originally posted by Manhater
Well that's a shame, it seems we're all not going to be around to witness it. Didn't you forget that Dec. 12, 2012 is coming up?

edit on 21-10-2012 by Manhater because: (no reason given)

Hey, hopefully we will have a big solar flare, no higher than X5-6, and we will have a beautiful light show from the solar max coming up.

I enjoy the beauty in those too.

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