Al Ain: The early morning sky above the emirates will be lit with the light of hundreds of falling meteors on Wednesday.
The event, generated by the annual passing of a comet, has been attracting many stargazers and astronomers as Dubai Astronomy Group (DAG) has arranged an open to all facility to enjoy the nature’s firework near Dubai.
Around 10 meteors will be falling in a minute, said the DAG, noting that this would be the debris, made of dirt and ice, of the Swift-Tuttle comet. The celestial event had begun on July 17 and it will continue until August 24, however, the group said the climax will be on Wednesday.
Hasan Ahmad Al Hariri, president of the DAG, said in a web announcement that the spectacle that appears to emanate from the constellation in the northern sky called Parshawyyat — Arabic for bearer of Ghoul’s head — or Perseus named after the Greek hero Perseus.
He said August is usually the month of meteors, with rocky debris from a wandering comet filling the sky with shooting stars these nights. One of the best displays of shooting stars is reaching its peak in the next couple of days.
The DAG will set up a desert camp and anybody willing to watch it from the depths of the desert is welcome to join the Perseid meteor shower observation trip that will take place 60km outside Dubai, early on August 12 morning.
The trip is open to anybody interested in the showers, the group said in its web announcement. The location for the gathering is outside the Emirates Cooperative Society at Al Twar in Dubai at 8:30pm.
According to media reports, this year is expected to produce an above average number of shooting stars that could offer a rewarding experience to sky-watchers around the globe. The bright streaks and occasional blazing fireballs of the meteors should reach their peak well before dawn Wednesday and after sunset that night, the reports said.
But Tuesday night should offer a better view as the waning moon doesn't rise until 11pm and the sky will be darkest before the moonlight interferes, the San Fransisco Chronicle quoted astronomy professor Andrew Fraknoi as saying.
The Perseid meteors are the debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, which flies from deep space into the inner solar system every 130 years on its long, looping orbit around the sun, where it remains for several years. And each year in August, while the comet is flying inside our solar system, the solar wind and the sun's heat scatter the comet's tail of dust, ice and rocks widely across the sky.
Then, as the debris particles hit the Earth's upper atmosphere, shock waves from their impact cause them to flare into brightness and they show as long streaks of light – and sometimes as brilliant fireballs. Archaeologists have found Chinese records of the Perseids from an unknown scribe writing in 36AD, and the comet itself was discovered in 1862 by astronomers Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle.
For more details long onto www.dubaiastronomy.com
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