This will be a good weekend for skywatchers, as a fresh meteor shower is anticipated that may put on a cosmic light show providing as many as 200 meteors every hour.
The never-before-seen shower, resulting from the Earth passing through the dust trails of a comet dubbed 209P/LINEAR, could be in effect between 10:30 p.m. EDT on May 23 to around 7 a.m. EDT May 24, experts at the space agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said.
The peak of the shower should occur between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. EDT and could rival the intensity of the annual Perseid shower that occurs every August.
The comet, which crosses Earth's orbit every 5 years in its journey around our sun, was noticed in 2004. Dust particles the comet has ejected during previous passes, some as far back as the 1800s, could give us a dramatic show as our planet crosses this historic steam of debris.
The intensity of shower, dubbed the May Camelopardalids for the constellation from which they will seem to radiate, is hard to predict and will depend on the quantity of dust and debris encountered, experts say.
"We have no idea what the comet was doing in the 1800s," says Bill Cooke, the lead for NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "The parent comet doesn't appear to be very active now, so there could be a great show, or there could be little activity."
"We expect these meteors to radiate from a point in Camelopardalids, also known as 'the giraffe,' a faint constellation near the North Star," Cooke says. "It's a great opportunity to see a new meteor shower -- an opportunity I want to see with my own eyes."
North America will be favored with possibly the best views of the shower since the peak will occur during the darkest hours of the night with the Camelopardalids radiant point at its highest point in the sky.
However, this could be both the first and last opportunity to see the meteor shower, since the parent comet's orbit is constantly being altered, mostly by the gravitational field of Jupiter as the comet passes the giant planet during its solar system journey.
That same effect moves the resulting dust streams, Cooke says.
"If you look at the models, Jupiter's gravity has tugged this stuff into the Earth's path this year, but by next year, Jupiter's gravity will have pulled it away again," he says.
Reason enough to stay up late this Memorial Day weekend, astronomers say.
