I woke up early this morning, having to urinate. It was around 4:30 am, and I remembered reading before I went to sleep that the Perseid meteors were supposed to be visible before dawn. The moon was a crescent and bright Venus was near by. I took a patio chair out to the middle of the back yard along with a blanket. There was supposed to be about one per minute, but I saw only about one every 4 minutes, so I was disappointed.
I read that the meteors were the result of debris from a comet, and that they were relatively small -- say an inch or less in diameter. It occurred to me that someday when we have cheaper space flight, garbage from orbiting stations may be purposely ejected into the upper atmosphere at certain times. When seen from Earth at night, it make for quite a display while it burns up, analogous to a fireworks show.
Posted by seander at August 12, 2004 05:17 AM