The Arietids are a strong
meteor shower
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extr ...
that lasts from May 22 to July 2 each year, and peaks on June 7. The Arietids, along with the
Zeta Perseids, are the most intense daylight meteor showers of the year.
The source of the shower is unknown, but scientists suspect that they come from the asteroid
1566 Icarus
1566 Icarus ( ; ''provisional designation'': ) is a large near-Earth object of the Apollo group and the lowest numbered potentially hazardous asteroid. It has is an extremely eccentric orbit (0.83) and measures approximately in diameter. In 19 ...
,
although the orbit also corresponds similarly to
96P/Machholz.
[
First discovered at Jodrell Bank Observatory in ]England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
during the summer of 1947, the showers are caused when the Earth passes through a dense portion of two interplanetary meteoroid streams, producing an average of 60 shooting stars each hour, that originate in the sky from the constellation Aries and the constellation Perseus. However, because both constellations are so close to the Sun when these showers reach their peak, the showers are difficult to view with the naked eye. Some of the early meteors are visible in the very early hours of the morning, usually an hour before dawn. The meteors strike Earth's atmosphere at speeds around 39 km/s.
By June 22 the radiant
Radiant may refer to:
Computers, software, and video games
* Radiant (software), a content management system
* GtkRadiant, a level editor created by id Software for their games
* Radiant AI, a technology developed by Bethesda Softworks for '' ...
has migrated to the constellation Taurus (3h 51m +27) which is the same constellation that the Beta Taurids peak on June 28.[
]
References
External links
Arietids vs Perseids (2022)
(radio)
{{Meteor showers
Meteor showers
May events
June events
July events