Kappa Ursae Majorids
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Kappa Ursae Majorids (KUM) is a minor
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 ext ...
associated with the constellation
Ursa Major Ursa Major, also known as the Great Bear, is a constellation in the Northern Sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means "greater (or larger) bear", referring to and contrasting it with nearby Ursa M ...
. It is usually active annually from October 28 to November 17, with a peak around November 6. The radiant point of this shower is near the star
Kappa Ursae Majoris Kappa Ursae Majoris (κ Ursae Majoris, abbreviated Kappa UMa, κ UMa) is a binary star in the constellation of Ursa Major. With a combined apparent magnitude of +3.60, the system is approximately 358 light-years from Earth ...
, located at right ascension 10:27 and declination +42°.
Meteors A meteor, known colloquially as a shooting star, is a glowing streak of a small body (usually meteoroid) going through Earth's atmosphere, after being heated to incandescence by collisions with air molecules in the upper atmosphere, creating a ...
from this shower enter the atmosphere at a
velocity Velocity is a measurement of speed in a certain direction of motion. It is a fundamental concept in kinematics, the branch of classical mechanics that describes the motion of physical objects. Velocity is a vector (geometry), vector Physical q ...
of approximately 65 km/s. KUM is a weak shower, typically producing less than one meteor per hour, making observation challenging.


Observation

Due to their high northern radiant, these meteors are best observed from the
Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined by humans as being in the same celestial sphere, celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the Solar ...
during the last hour before dawn, when the radiant is highest in the sky. Observers in the Southern Hemisphere have limited visibility. Kappa Ursae Majorids meteors were first identified by Japanese observers following an outburst on November 5, 2009. .


References

{{reflist Meteor showers Ursa Major