NASA: Crumbling Comets Create Marvelous Meteors

NASA: Crumbling Comets Create Marvelous Meteors

NASA Chat: Crumbling Comets Create Marvelous Meteors

07.22.09

Comet McNaught, seen at sunset from Chile and overlooking the Pacific Ocean. (ESA)
NASA's Swift satellite views Comet Lulin. (NASA, Swift, Univ. Leicester, DSS (STScI/AURUA), Dennis Bodewits (NASA/GSFC), et al.)
A Leonids meteor explodes in Earth's upper atmosphere on Nov. 23, 1998. (Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE) team.)
› Watch the meteor explode

Summer means fireworks, and here's how to see some of Nature's best displays. Start with a few comets streaking around the solar system, leaving behind dusty trails of gas, ice, rocks and dust. Then find a comfortable nighttime seat on planet Earth as it passes through these dusty comet trails. Finally, sit back and enjoy the show as bits of leftover comet burn up in our atmosphere, creating the celestial displays that we call meteor showers.

On Thursday, July 22, astronomer Bill Cooke from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center will answer your questions about comets and meteors: their origins and cycles, their composition and colors and the best way to catch a glimpse of them in the night skies.

Bill has perfect timing: around July 28 and 29, the Southern Delta Aquarids meteor shower will peak as remnants of the Marsden and Kracht Sunskirting comets glow in the summer sky.