Night Time Sky Show (if the clouds clear long enough)

The summer weather started off promising but has reverted to pretty much what we would normally expect;  rain, warm when the sun is out, and the odd clear spell.  

If you are a night owl (it still gets dark pretty late) there are a couple of things worth looking out for this week.  

The Perseid Meteor Shower:

On Thursday 12th August, the Perseid Meteor Shower will peak.  What this means, is that the Earth is passing through the tail of the ancient comet ‘Swift-Tuttle’ (as usual, this is named after the people who first discovered it).  Lots of debris hits the upper atmosphere at speeds of up to 140,000mph.  It is all quite harmless, fortunately, but can put on a spectacular display.

If you live in a dark area, you might see up to 100 ‘shooting stars’ per hour late this Thursday night, but even in Town you should see a fair number.

‘Coronal Mass Ejection’:

At the end of last week, the sun splurted out a giant ‘coronal mass ejection’.  This means a heap of charged particles that scientists initially thought would miss Earth will light up the atmosphere at the North, and South Poles with the aurora borealis or ‘northern lights’.  

In extreme situations (which this might well be one) you can actually see the the ‘northern lights’ from as far down as Somerset.  A friend of mine said that from his house on the Mendips a few years ago, he saw what he thought was a laser show (which initially annoyed him, having dragged his telescope out).  What he was seeing, in fact, was the northern lights - a phenomena that isn’t even taken for granted in Helsinki!

Governments from across the world have been having discussions about ‘Coronal Mass Ejections’ (CME’s) recently, as we are about to go into a period where the Sun is at its most active.  These giant solar flares can cause blackouts (as one did in the US and Canada in 1989), and destroy telephone exchanges, not to mention the damage they can do to satellites.  We can now get some early warning, and even predict these events to some extent, but as we become more and more dependent upon technology, thought needs to be given to how we deal with them, should the worst happen.

Its definitely a good week to go out at night and to look to the North.  With the moon out of the way, I can guarantee you will see some bright meteors if you hang around for a short while, but you might just be lucky enough to see an exploding fireball or the northern lights!