Draconids on 8 October 2011 and Earth's satellites

Photo: Leonids in Rikubetsu, Japan.                                   Credit: REUTERS

On October 8, 2011, Earth will be in the path of a comet dust, called Giacobini-Zinner from the late 19th Century leading to an increased meteor activity.The number of shooting stars of course, can not be exactly sure, but the intensity can be 1 to 10 shooting stars per minute, and it's just a guess.

There will be full Moon, but it will be quite light, which makes you can not see this event in all splendor, and that is why we can not get but a shooting star per minute. However, the event is of great interest to scientists because it will help you understand how meteor showers form and evolve.

In the past, Draconids appeared in 1933 and 1946, when they fell even up to several thousand meteors per hour. This year we will not expect a meteor storm too high, reaching only 40-50 maximum meteors / hour.
Their brightness will be quite big at first, but later will gradual decrease to average levels. In Eastern Europe, will begin at 7:24 p.m. and will end at 23:00 p.m.
We are lucky as we will be in night and Draconids can be seen, the Americas not being able to enjoy this event because there will be daytime.

The effects of  Draconids on artificial satellites:

Draconids can be a danger to near Earth satellites, although it still has not been demonstrated so far during other "showers" of falling stars.
It still showed some anomalies that are produced by these meteor showers caused on satellites, such as Olympus and Landsat, anomalies caused by electrostatic discharge produced by meteoroid impacts.

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Posted in: Astronomy news