The Inquisitor
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The 2007 Aurigid Meteor Shower
An early morning meteor over Italy in Nov. 2006. This is what an Aurigid might look like. Photo credit: Antonio Finazzi
On Sept. 1, 2007, a flurry of bright and oddly-colored meteors might—emphasis on might--come streaming out of the constellation Auriga, putting on a beautiful early morning show for sky watchers in western North America:
The source of the putative shower is Comet Kiess (C/1911 N1), a mysterious "long-period comet" that has visited the inner solar system only twice in the past two thousand years. In 83 BC, give or take a few centuries, Comet Kiess swung by the sun and laid down a trail of dusty debris that has been drifting toward Earth's orbit ever since. On Sept. 1, 2007, the dusty trail and Earth will meet.
But will a shower actually materialize? The answer lies in the unknown contents of the debris stream.
"We have so little experience with ancient debris from long-period comets," notes Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "Almost anything could happen—from a fizzle to a beautiful meteor shower."
Astronomers were first alerted seven years ago to the possibility of a shower by Finnish astronomer Esko Lyytinen and Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, CA—both are accomplished meteor forecasters who study the dynamics of cometary dust trails. Jenniskens has since teamed with Jeremie Vaubaillon of Caltech to refine the forecast using a debris stream model developed by Vaubaillon.
"We expect the outburst to peak at 11:36 UT (4:36 a.m. PDT) +/- 20 minutes on Sept. 1st," says Jenniskens. "The whole event should last about 2 hours and be visible from California, Oregon, Hawaii and the eastern Pacific Ocean."
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