(meteorobs) Martian Meteor Shower
meteoreye at comcast.net
meteoreye at comcast.net
Wed Apr 2 14:34:04 EDT 2008
Shooting Star Shower Spotted on Mars
By Dave Mosher
Staff Writer
posted: 1 April 2008
7:01 p.m. ET
A shower of shooting stars has been recorded by instruments on Mars for the first time, astronomers say.
Meteors have been spotted before by the Mars rovers, but no device has ever detected a full shower until now.
United Kingdom astronomers predicted the event by tracking a comet's path near Mars, then comparing their forecast with Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) satellite data of the red planet's ionosphere the upper reaches of atmosphere teeming with charged particles.
"Just as we can predict meteor outbursts at Earth, such as the Leonids [shower that occurs every November], we can also predict when meteor showers are going to occur at Mars and Venus," said Apostolos Christou, an astronomer at the U.K.'s Armagh Observatory who helped predict the martian meteoric event.
Christou is set to present findings about the meteor-showering pass of comet 79P/du Toit-Hartley at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast on April 2.
Full Story:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080401-mars-shooting-stars.html
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