After the month-long show of comet #NEOWISE, skywatchers are all set to experience yet another spectacular celestial phenomenon—Perseid Meteor Shower—this month.
On Tuesday and Wednesday night, the highest number of meteors—that appears like a shooting star—will grace the night sky of India, especially between 2 am to pre-dawn hours.
However, many parts of India may not have a clear view owing to monsoon clouds. Moreover, the Perseid shower is clashing with a half-moon, and the bright moon may dampen the night show.
Meteors are basically part of meteoroids, which are space objects composed of dust and range in various sizes. When these meteoroids enter the Earth’s atmosphere they are referred to as meteors.
The meteoroids travel at high speeds into the atmosphere and burn up resulting in the bright streak of light. This is known as the meteor shower.
#Perseid meteors shower is caused by debris left behind the Comet Swift-Tuttle. The debris can travel to our planet’s atmosphere at a velocity of around 130,000 miles per hour.
Yes, provided one has a clear sky and less pollution. The stunning celestial event will be visible in India on August 11 and August 12. The visibility of the meteor shower will be maximum around 2 AM to pre-dawn hours.
To catch the glimpse of the shower, one must select a location that is free from air and light pollution. The brightness of the meteor shower may be impacted due to the moonlight.
Moreover, the best part is sky grazers don’t need any particular equipment to watch the meteor shower. It can be easily seen through the naked eye and is visible all over the sky.
#PerseidMeteors shower gets its name from the fact that the point from which they appear to hail lies in the constellation Perseus—an autumn constellation of the northern sky.
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While searching for life in the Gulf of Mexico, researchers pulled out a new bizarre-looking species of isopod, whose head resembles the Darth Vader from Star Wars!
This new-found crustacean, named Bathonymus yucatanensis, has 14 legs and is around 26 cm long — approximately 25 times larger than its closest relative, the common woodlouse.
While these blonde creatures seem pretty scary, the "Vanilla Vaders" are, in fact, harmless to humans.
Their huge size is only due to deep-sea gigantism — a phenomenon wherein ocean dwellers grow bigger than their terrestrial relatives due to lack of sunlight.
This super-Earth is a rocky world, on which a year is equal to just 11 Earth days.
The short orbit is down to the red dwarfs being a lot smaller than the Sun that centres our solar system. But the smaller sizes also make their gravitational fields less expansive than the Sun's.
Therefore, Ross 508b revolves around its red dwarf at a distance of just 5 million km. Mercury, in comparison, is about 60 million km from the Sun.
The short distance between this super-Earth & its red dwarf begs the question: how could it possibly be habitable?
#Japan is making grand plans of creating interplanetary #trains and champagne flute-like glass habitats in its bid to send and host humans on the #Moon and #Mars!
An interplanetary transportation system dubbed the 'Hexatrack', which maintains a gravity of 1G during long-distance travel to mitigate the effects of prolonged exposure to low gravity, has been proposed by #Japanese researchers.
The #trains will also possess 'Hexacapsules', which are essentially hexagon-shaped capsules with a moving device in the middle.
In 2012, the almost-complete skeleton of a new kind of #dinosaur was found in the northern Patagonia region of #Argentina.
The dinosaur has been christened #Meraxes gigas. The generic epithet is an ode to a dragon in the #GameOfThrones series.
Standing at the height of 11 m (36 ft) and weighing roughly 4000 kgs, the #dinosaur sported several crests, bumps and horns on its skull, which lent it a menacing appearance.
But the highlight of the findings is that the dinosaur had teeny-tiny arms, just like the #Trex!
Dr Jose, along with an international research team from the US, UK and Australia, will be examining the Galactic Centre Cloud (GCC) — the central molecular zone of our Milky Way — in April 2023.
They have been allotted 27.3 hours over the access period of 12 months.