Meteor showers on earth… The Cause: Comet Debris
It is expected that the Earth will experience a new meteor shower .on Tuesday as our planet enters a stream of debris left behind by .a comet near Earth orbiting the sun.
The newspaper “Independent” mentioned that the meteors appear in the sky as if flowing from the direction of the star Lambda-Sculptoris,. meaning that the possible name for this meteor shower is Lambda-Sculptorids.
Scientists, including a team from the Paris Observatory. say that the comet 46P/Wirtanen, which orbits the sun every 5.4 years. could trigger a meteor shower on Tuesday when its debris enters the Earth’s atmosphere. and burns.
While scientists have found the possibility of the comet producing a stream of debris during several previous encounters with Earth, there have been no reports of meteor showers.
In the new study. the team simulated the previous orbital evolution of the comet. and found that a potential encounter between the comet .and Earth this week could lead to the release of meteor showers from its fragments.
The team wrote in a study not yet peer-reviewed but published in the arXiv journal. “The results show possible expectations for an encounter. on December 12, 2023, between 8:00. and 12:30 UTC.”
The team added, “The level of meteor shower activity is largely uncertain due to the absence of reports of previous showers.”
Scientists say that the best observations of the expected meteor shower. will likely be from Eastern Australia,. New Zealand, and Oceania. as these meteor showers are observed when Earth passes through .the debris clouds left by comets.
Sunlight can convert the materials in comet fragments .directly from a solid state to gas in a process called “sublimation.”
Scientists say that this gas can inflate other fragments from the debris. leading to the creation of distinctive tails .and halos for comets.
Comet 46P/Wirtanen was discovered in January 1948. and the size of its nucleus is estimated to be about 1.4 kilometers. It is classified as a near-Earth comet. indicating that it is likely the original body of the meteor shower.
