Galery

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At 02:00AM tonight get up from your bed, go closer to your window, look towards the sky and you will see the beauty of the falling stars.

If the weather is clear and there are no clouds, every year around this time we can see the phenomenon called “shower of the Leonids” and in the beginning of August – the “shower of the Perseids”.  

The shower of the Leonids gets its name from the location of its radiant in the constellation Leo.

It is associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle, which leaves after itself a tail of dust, while going through the inner part of the Solar system every 33 years. This year Earth will pass through two such clouds of dust, which are left from the comet in 1466 and 1533, reports an article in New Scientist.

The best time to watch the shower in Greece is around 02:00AM tonight. As Earth rotates around the Sun, every year in November it passes through this dust of particles and tears it with speed of many thousands of kilometers per hour.

The dust particles, which weight about one gram, blur in the top layers of the atmosphere at height of 100 kilometers and burn. While they are burning a light line is created, which is two-three meters long and which can be observed from Earth.

“Falling stars” are spectacular but cause headaches to all scientists, because they can damage space ships and satellites due to their moving speed of 260 000km/h.