Who discovered PERSEID METEORS?

They are the skies’ dazzling dancers.  They are the greatest show above the earth and the Las Vegas of the night sky : METEOR SHOWERS.

I happen to be one of those who believe in the power of shooting stars. I make a wish at the sight of them up to now. Whether my wishes came true or not, I could’nt remember if they were, but the fact that I see them is wich come true enough.

The world’s expecting the annual Perseid meteor shower tonight for those fanatics of the shooting stars. It is said that in North America, the best time to watch will be between midnight to 5 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 12, but late Tuesday night and also Wednesday night could be one of the best time if  weather permits.The Perseids are bits of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, which has laid down several streams of debris, each in a slightly different location, over the centuries as it orbits the sun. Every August, Earth passes through these debris streams, which spread out over time.

But whoever did discovered these meteor showers?

I t was Edward Claudius Herrick who was a bookworm whose father was a Yale graduate and founder of a girls’ school. His mother was a descendant of one of Yale’s founders. The Herricks lived in New Haven, Connecticut, the home of Yale. But the boy did not go to Yale. Edward’s parents though ,felt that his chronic eyelid inflammation would keep him from succeeding in higher education. So in 1827, at the age of 16, Edward became a clerk in a bookstore that served Yale students and faculty and was also the college’s publishing house.

Everyone in New Haven with intellectual interests stopped by the bookstore, and Herrick reveled in conversations with professors such as astronomer Denison Olmsted and chemist Benjamin Silliman. The young clerk worked hard, and at age 24 he became one of the bookstore’s owners. But during the next three years the business failed and left Herrick broke. On the evening of August 9, 1837, just as his business was teetering toward collapse, Herrick observed an unusual number of meteors in the night sky. From people who had stayed up very late that night, he heard that the meteors were even more numerous and brilliant after midnight.

Since then American astronomers in 1837 were still gripped by the excitement of the epic meteor deluge that had taken place four years earlier. On the night of November 12-13, 1833, more than a thousand shooting stars per minute had been seen radiating from the constellation Leo (Sky & Telescope: November 1995, page 24). Astronomers had been taken completely by surprise; it was the first time that most of them had paid attention to meteors at all. They were especially startled by Olmsted’s demonstration that the shower’s meteors must have been flying together in parallel from a distant region of space. Most astronomers had believed that meteors were mere atmospheric phenomena, to be ignored like clouds and weather.

So stay up star gazers, gear being romantic and bring along your partners on this annual show of the sky or just a simple gazing all by yourself could give you a bit of relaxation too.

More space info on:www.skyandtelescope.com