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Question about meteors, comet 209P/LINEAR

Bluegill

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Bluegill
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Oct 17, 2002
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I have an astronomy question I hope someone here can answer. I’ve been reading news about comet 209P/LINEAR and the possibility of a new significant meteor shower in May, but I don’t quite get why it has never occurred before.

I think I might be realizing something I had not realized before: that the comet debris fields are not like continuous hoops of debris circling the sun (and which we occasionally intersect), but rather they are unevenly distributed and perhaps clump around the comet’s position. Is this right?

In the past, whenever I went out to look for meteors during meteor showers, I was envisioning the debris stream as being like a continuous band around the sun, and the earth’s orbit was momentarily intersecting it. But I guess, at least in many cases, it’s more of a discrete clumpy cloud of debris that is orbiting the sun, and which we pass through?

Is this why we have never seen these forcasted “Camelopardalid” meteors before, because this is the first time our orbit has intersected the debris field?

And does this also mean that the Camelopardalids would not be an annual event, but would only occur every so many years (or centuries), when our orbits sync up again and overlap?
I keep seeing news stories refer to this as the beginning of a “new” meteor shower, which made me think it would be an annual thing, but if I’m right about the rest of this, I’m thinking that’s not what was meant. And similarly, is this why the Leonids seem to jump in number every 33 years, because 33 years is the orbital period of the parent comet?

I hope someone can help me out of my confusion.
 
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Bluegill said:
I think I might be realizing something I had not realized before: that the comet debris fields are not like continuous hoops of debris circling the sun (and which we occasionally intersect), but rather they are unevenly distributed and perhaps clump around the comet’s position. Is this right?
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Yes, pretty much. It will depend a lot on the details of the comet's composition, orbit, interaction with other bodies, and so on, but in general you won't have a continuous hoop of evenly distributed debris. For the Leonids, you can check out this plot showing where the most intense meteor showers have been encountered (the red circles for the late '90s are predictions - it's a fairly old graph). So the Earth encounters the most debris from Tempel-Tuttle when we cross fairly close behind it (close being relative, that's up to about 18 months behind) and actually slightly further from the Sun than the comet's orbit.

Edit: In the case of this new comet, the prediction of a possible meteor shower appears to be based on the prediction that a whole bunch of the "clumps" it left in the past will overlap with each other while the Earth is passing through them this year. See here. So we probably shouldn't expect this to be an annual occurrence.
 
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New meteor shower?

According to Spaceweather.com, we are to cross an old orbit of comet 209P/LINEAR. They very cautiously predict a possible meteor shower or maybe, maybe, maybe as meteor storm for the morning of 5/24/14.
http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=01&month=05&year=2014
Nuts. It is from their May 2 page.
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PUNY COMET, MAJOR METEOR SHOWER? On May 24th, Earth will pass through a cloud of debris from periodic comet 209P/LINEAR. The result could be a new meteor shower. Forecasters expect meteor rates as high as 200 per hour when Earth crosses the debris zone. There has even been talk of a possible meteor storm. These are lofty predictions for a comet that looks so puny:
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The spectacularly failed predictions of the "Comet of the Century" lead me to take anything they're saying with a grain of salt.
 
Since they're such unpredictable things, you can't blame astronomers, who are always cautious about predicting the activity of such things. Blame the media who can't bother with science stories enough to hire someone who is familiar with science to cover those stories.
 
http://cometography.com/pcomets/209p.html

"APPARITION OF 2014
[Perihelion Date=2014 May 6.32; Period=5.10 years]
Kinoshita and Nakano have independently published predictions for the 2014 apparition. Both stated that the comet would pass perihelion on 2014 May 6.32. However, the most exciting aspect of this apparition will not be the comet, but the possibility of a strong meteor shower from the comet. In P. Jennisken's 2006 book Meteor Showers and Their Parent Comets, a prediction is published from E. Lyytinen stating that Earth would encounter dust from this comet on the 2014 May 24, adding that the dust was released by the comet during the 1800s and 1900s. Lyytinen said a dozen or more meteors per hour might be observed. During October 2012, J. Verbaillon examined this event in more detail. He noted that all dust trails ejected by this comet between 1803 and 1924 would fall in the path of Earth in May 2014 and suggested the "shower might well be a storm." Verbaillon added that North America would be best suited for this event."
 
Bump

It is expected this weekend. Saturday the 24th between 2-4am EDST.
 
Major meteor shower could delight N. America May 23-24
21 hours ago by Kerry Sheridan

Skywatchers in the United States and Canada could see a one-of-a-kind meteor shower late Friday night and early Saturday, astronomers say.
Never before have astronomers witnessed the debris trail behind this particular comet, and a sea of white lights could dash across the night sky for hours.
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http://phys.org/news/2014-05-major-meteor-shower-america-.html
 
From Sky & Telescope:
There's lots of uncertainty about how strong the display will be. Comet 209P/LINEAR is active now, but that long ago it might not have been. The comet was not seen in the 18th, 19th, or early 20th centuries, when it ejected the particles that are about to collide with Earth.

In February 2012, the comet passed about 54 million miles from Jupiter. During that encounter, the giant planet's gravity tugged 209P/LINEAR — and presumably any cometary debris in its vicinity — into a slightly different orbit. The new path now comes even closer to us than it did before, missing Earth's orbit by just 280,000 miles (a little farther away than the Moon).

"We'll be seeing this shower for the very first time," MacRobert explains.

- See more at: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/pres...-possible-meteor-shower/#sthash.Xj6x69Oe.dpuf
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That was my experience as well but I'm in the middle of a city so the lights obstructed a lot.
 
I had a perfect view from my sailplane port in Arthur Ontairo

was listening to CBC on the way up so that was fun.
Randy Bachmann’s Vinyl Tap which I always enjoy.

Club house was open - - had to turn the lights out

zero gravity chair was good - chilly at 8C but had motorcycle gear on including the heavier winter jacket so that was wind proof.
I'd viewed a Leonids from there and was over 60 per hour - lots of fireballs - best ever.

Milky way was pretty dense tho there was enough moisture there was a fair bit of loom around the horizon but the final fireball around 3.30am was a pretty good one

Was fully across my field of view and only slight down angle - cruised about 1/3 of the way down from the pole star heading across my field of view - I was facing north - it would have crossed the big dipper
3 satellites for sure and maybe a fourth tho it could have been a plane on polar flight to New York

couple of minor meteors and one short fast one and then nothing till the fireball. The minor stuff was just about what I would expect any clear night.

Got a note back from the CBC as the program I was listening to on the drive home requested feedback. I was listening to her program and that was keeping me awake and she requested some feedback on the meteors

Glad you caught a fireball at least! Most people who've written in saw nothing or very little.Thanks,
Mary
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Pretty morning to come home to
ScreenShot2014-05-24atMay24201463935AM_zpse92dd6ff.jpg
 
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I hate when I prepare for an event like this and then it hazes/clouds over at the last minute. Then I can't even tell if I'm missing anything! Plus, I was already irritated that the neighbor had his nuclear bright yard light on all night.
 
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