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NOT SEEN BEFORE: SAME METEOROID STREAM SHOWS UP AGAIN A MONTH LATER

NOT SEEN BEFORE: SAME METEOROID STREAM SHOWS UP AGAIN A MONTH LATER

29 Piscid

An unusual shower of very slow meteors was briefly active on October 17-19 last year (c.f. http://cams.seti.org/FDL/ for dates of 2019 Oct 17-19). Now called the 29-Piscids, the shower was last time detected in 2014. Surprisingly, the shower showed again just a month later, when it was active  between Nov 11-18. SETI Institute meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens reports in the latest IAU Central Bureau of Astronomical Telegrams that both the October and November showers are likely the same. Both streams of meteoroids move in an elliptical orbit that has the same shape and is oriented in the same direction. The reason the stream could show twice is because the meteoroids move almost in the orbital plane of Earth. The stream must be very young, because it does not intersect Earth's orbit every year.

For more information: http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/cbet/RecentCBETs.html
 

29 Piscid

 

 

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