The shooting stars a unique show – ANSA.it

The shooting stars are preparing to offer a unique spectacle, though of course clouds permit. Soon shooting stars the most anticipated of the year, the Perseids, will become more and more numerous and the night between 12 and 13 August will offer a truly unique, darting light in a completely dark sky. Thanks to the new moon there will, in fact, the light of the moon to disturb them. To see something like that again we have to wait three years, until August 2018.

” To find such a sky to wait a full three years ”, says astrophysicist Gianluca Masi, head of the Virtual Telescope . ” Another night of stars candenti moonless – he added – we will in fact only in August 2018 ”.
Astronomers, amateurs and enthusiasts of the sky are already alert, ready to take part in the many events dedicated to the shooting stars all over Italy. Among the events are the most famous ” Goblets of Stars ”, combining the passion of the sky to that of wine. Some people, such as blogs Astronomitaly, has compiled a list of the best places from which to observe the Perseids, region by region. ” The important thing is to try and get away from the lights of the city; ideally, by the sea or in the mountains, for those on holiday ”, says Masi.

” Although the best-known event is the one with the shooting stars of the night of San Lorenzo, August 10, the peak is expected in the night between 12 and 13 August ” says Paolo Volpini, Italian Amateur Astronomers Union (Uai). You can then begin to raise his eyes even now in search of the first light trails. ” But we must not get tired of waiting – warns Volpini – and try every night, until that between 12 and 13 August ”.

Patience is a must also because the shooting stars will be more visible in the second half of the night, from midnight onwards. ” The ideal times to see them change, of course, depending on the locality ”, detects Volpini. They are visible everywhere in the sky, but their ‘radiant’, ie the point in the sky from which the meteors originate, is in the constellation of Perseus, to the east. To unleash the show and ‘the Earth’s encounter with debris great comet Swift-Tuttle, which goes every 133 years in the most ‘inner Solar System. When the tiny grains of dust left by the comet entering the Earth’s atmosphere,

through it at the speed ‘of over 200,000 kilometers per hour, evaporating and leaving an unmistakable trail of light. The cloud of dust from the comet ‘and’ so ‘wide that the Earth takes weeks to cross it and you will reach the peak of meteors when Earth arrives in the heart of the cloud.