Perseids: The shooting stars are hiding - Times Online

weekend the Perseid falling from the night sky. But with luck, you can see the shining rain. Meteorologists say for Germany clouds ahead.

© REUTERS / Denis Balibouse

A shooting star in the night sky, north of Geneva (archive picture)

thousands of shooting stars and fire balls whizzing over the next few days the night sky along. These are called Perseids meteor that race every year in August as the Earth’s atmosphere. They are among the most beautiful meteor streams that are currently there. The Shooting Star showers occur because the Earth in its orbit around the sun these days crossing the tail of the comet Swift-Tuttle track. Diving the debris into the Earth’s atmosphere, they burn up and the sky lights up.

By Wednesday, rain

the Perseids – named after the constellation Perseus – from heaven. On the night of Tuesday, the Shooting Star advent reached its peak, more than a hundred flashes per hour could then be to catch.

display

But this year, do you need a lot of luck. A cloud front from the northwest is expected to spoil the view. Just to the south of Germany, the night could be clearer. It is better on the weekend. “In the night from Saturday to Sunday, the chances are greatest, the shooting stars to see,” said the meteorologist Martin Jonas from the German Weather Service. The moon at least not interfere with the view through his light: He is as thin crescent in the sky and has been going on before midnight

. One expert advises the deck chair

advises

Jürgen Schulz of the Association of Friends star, to find a place where the sky is very dark, outside the big cities ie. “However, the Perseids are no spectacular fireworks,” says Schulz. Some of them you can see only very weak. Open eyes and patience should therefore bring Shooting Star Gazer – “and always have ready a few wishes, then you will be rewarded,” says Schulz. To stay stiff neck, Schulz recommends a deck chair. From half past ten we could then make it cozy. You do not need a telescope, the naked eye can see.

Unknown is where the superstition comes meteors would bring happiness. Once people saw stars in divine spark of light in the dark firmament. Shooting stars were seen as wicks, the angels dropped when brushing the sky candles. Accordingly, it was hoped at her appearance on Divine assistance, or at least an angel on the side.

However

bring meteors not anywhere good. They are seen as evil characters in Mongolia. In popular belief, the steppe dwellers are made visible souls who had died on the journey to the afterlife. Even the natives of the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean are afraid of falling stars. They see it as torches, which make evil forest spirits preying on people who carelessly are outdoors at night.

but

Who wants to make a wish and in the next few days does not see the flashes of light, can look forward to the Leonids in November.

asteroid

asteroids n are small stone objects that move in an orbit around the sun. Your name – Aster (“Star”) with the suffix affidavit (“similar”) – describes what they look like stars because they seem so small

Together with meteoroids and comets are the asteroids to small bodies of the solar system. Small body orbiting the sun, but do not have spherical shape. Their mass and gravity is too low to form this shape.

The majority of asteroids in our solar system is located in the so-called asteroid belt , a collection of asteroids and dwarf planets between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

meteoroid

small bodies up to several meters are a few millimeters in size, are called meteoroids .

Although they are smaller than asteroids n , but a clear distinction – such as the chemical composition or size – it does not exist

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can arise in different ways: either it triggers the gravitational planet from an asteroid belt or the solar wind kicks them out of cometary nuclei. Meteoroids can also arise on a planet by the clash of two asteroids or by the impact of an asteroid.

Meteor

Once they enter the Earth’s atmosphere are called meteors, meteoroids or popularly shooting stars .

Generally the term includes all light and weather phenomena in the Earth’s atmosphere. The Meteor customer deals with meteors, not to be confused with meteorology, observation and description of weather and climate is dedicated to

.

meteors are also those meteoroids that enter the Earth’s atmosphere, but do not strike the earth. The lights of the meteors produced by the charging of the air particles when the meteoroid speeds through the atmosphere.

meteorite

When a meteoroid strikes the earth – the only place to cross Erdamosphäre – it is called a meteorite

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meteorites are composed of different minerals and become the rocks counted.

chondrites are the largest class of meteorites and are for the little silicate beads in their interior, the chondrules named. They also consist of the minerals olivine, pyroxene and plagioclase.

age determinations have revealed that they are already formed in the early solar system 4.5 billion years ago. Thus, they are the oldest rocks in the solar system. Because their composition also corresponds largely to that of the original solar nebula, they are also called undifferentiated meteorites.

comet

comets or comet are small bodies in our solar system. Their composition, they differ from asteroids. During which consist of rock, comets are also composed of frozen gases and water, which is why they are also called “dirty snowballs “.

comets are formed simultaneously with the rest of the solar system and orbiting the sun in the Oort Cloud or Kuiper Belt . By the attraction of passing stars or large planets pulling ice-rock chunks are occasionally torn from their actual track and directed into the interior of the planetary system.

The closer the ice blocks here comes the sun, the ice goes directly from the frozen state to a gaseous state without liquefy between. The previously trapped in the ice particles are free and, with the resulting gas has a 100,000 kilometer Wolkeum the Brocken – the so-called coma . By the solar wind, the cloud is drawn out, so that a comet’s tail of up to 100 million kilometers arises.

Planet

planets are different from stars in that they produce no light itself , but only by other stars – like the sun – reflect. Such as asteroids and planets revolve around the sun, due to their higher mass but the shape of a sphere designed.

Also planets are the only objects in its orbit, because they have been cleared by their gravity.

Star

stars are spherical gas giant , which emit light by itself. Its interior temperature and pressure are high enough for a long time, a fusion to take place. This hydrogen atoms fuse to form helium, with an awful lot of energy is released.

a starry night the human eye can see about 5,500 stars. They have different size, temperature, luminosity and lifetime.