Stars Fall Out of Sky This Weekend!

OK, they’re not really stars. They’re the Orionid meteors, bits and pieces of Halley’s Comet left behind from the last time the comet passed by. Every year at this time the Earth passes through this debris – particles ranging from the size of dust to pebbles. All those particles zoom into our atmosphere at speeds of up to 25 miles an hour, burning up as they enter and streaking across the sky.

They radiate from the Club of "Orion the Hunter". If you want to see them, they tend to fly after midnight, and are best seen before dawn. The astronomers at Kopernik Observatory predict dark skies and a shower producing up to 30 meteors an hour for this event.

Clear sky or not, if you live anywhere near Vestal, NY you might want to head over to their program on “Comets and Meteors” this Friday night, October 19 at 8 pm. You’ll have a chance to touch a real meteor, watch how a comet is made, and view the Orionids as they fall out of the sky. They’ll also be open for meteor-viewing October 18 – 21 from 8 pm on (clear skies only). You can call 607-748-3685 for  sky conditions or check their website after 6 pm for a sky update.

For more about comets, meteor showers and all things related, check out EarthSky. And drop by STEM Friday for some books reviews and news you can use.

Night Walking

last week's full moon made star-watching difficult

In the winter it seems like the stars are closer to the earth; brighter; easier to see. The waning moon makes this week (and next) a good time for a night walk. Not only that – you might even see some falling stars!

According to the folks at EarthSky there should be a meteor shower peaking near Solstice. The Ursid meteor shower radiates from the bowl of the Little Dipper and should peak next Thursday and Friday, December 22 and 23. It’s a pretty sparse “peak” as meteor showers go – you might see only 10 stars streaking across the sky in an hour. Or you might luck out and see a couple a minute.

STEM Friday: You are Older than the Stars!

Welcome to STEM Friday – that’s where we share nifty nonfiction that focuses on science, technology, engineering and math. You’ll find links to more reviews below. But first, a book I love – and brief chat with the author.

Older than the Stars

By Karen C. Fox, illus. by Nancy Davis

32 pages; ages 5-10

Charlesbridge 2010

This is a book that begins with a bang. Karen Fox hangs her tale of how the universe began on the structure of a nursery rhyme: “This is the star of red-hot stuff that burst from the gas in a giant puff that spun from the blocks that formed from the bits that were born in the bang when the world began.”

Early stellar chaos, well-illustrated with Nancy Davis’s bright potato prints and computer graphics, eventually resolves into form: planets, earth, plants, animals, and people. Fox shows how matter created in the big bang gets recycled over the eons – now some of that primordial stardust may be inside of each one of us.

Fun as it is, Fox includes plenty of sidebars explaining what scientists know about how the universe formed. Not only are the sidebars kid-friendly, but they put the story on two reading levels. She concludes with a not-to-scale timeline of the universe and a glossary of useful terms.

Fox, it turns out, has a degree in physics and English. “I had always meant to be a physics major,” she says, “but I was also a constant reader, so … I registered for a double major.” She was inspired to write this book when she saw a call for astronomy picture book ideas. Fox had just finished a book for adults and thought it would be a breeze to take all that information and make a kids book on the big bang. “The joke was on me,” she says. “This book took much longer to get to print than any of my adult books!”

I asked Fox how she came to structure her book like “the house that Jack built”. The initial draft had some repetition in it, she said. “But it wasn’t until the third draft that I realized that of course the book was supposed to be a poem.  The whole book just sort of came together after that.” It was, she said, an excellent lesson in why good writing almost always requires lots of re-writing – and a good editor.

Was Fox surprised by the bold prints that accompany her science story?  “I submitted all kinds of realistic images with my first draft,” she says. But once her editors sent a portfolio of Davis’s artwork, “I agreed that her style seemed fun in a way that would lend itself to illustrating some far out concepts.”

Every writer learns something when they write. Fox says, “I never knew that stars only make the first handful of light elements. It takes explosions as big as supernovae to fuse those atoms into the big stuff like gold and iron.”

Here's what other people are reviewing today:

Jeff Barger reviews How Does My Garden Grow over at NC Teacher Stuff where you can find lots of book reviews on everything from art to sports.

Over at Simply Science Shirley Duke reviews the newly released Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia. she says it's got a great technology section.

Anastasia Suen warms up our day with a review of Geology of the Desert Southwest: Investigate How the Earth Was Formed with 15 Projects at Chapter Book of the Day.

NOTE for STEM Friday reviewers: If you have difficulty leaving comments, please email me your link at sueheaven at gmail dot com.

Stars Falling Out of the Sky

This summer the Perseid shower is going to be hard to see because the full moon will obscure all but the brightest meteors. Don’t despair, though – according to the EarthSky folks there will be stars falling out of the sky for the next two weeks while the moon is dark.

OK – not real stars falling out of the sky, but meteors – small bits of rock bits from crumbling comets or other space debris that streak through the atmosphere as they speed earthward. Some of them move at a mighty clip, a couple hundred miles per hour or faster. Most of them burn up before they hit the ground, but in 1982 a 6-pound meteorite hit a house in Connecticut.  Scientists figure it was traveling more than 1,000 miles per hour.

One of the biggest dents left by a meteorite is in Winslow,Arizona. About 50,000 years ago a chunk of asteroid traveling 26,000 miles per hour collided with the earth. It left a crater nearly one mile wide and more than 500 feet deep.

Most meteorites are small, leaving only a streak in the sky. From now through August 4 you’ll have a chance to see a few, maybe 15 to 20 an hour. Though they come out of the southern sky, near Pegasus, they’ll arc across the sky so you should be able to see them even if you can’t find the constellation. Best sky-watching time is between midnight and dawn.