Perseid meteor shower and a supermoon. This weekend take some time to look at the night sky. One of the “biggest meteor showers of the year”, the usual Perseids, will reach its peak between the nights of August 12 and 13 (Friday to Saturday), coinciding with the full moon phase.
In statements to TSFRicardo Reis, from the scientific communication group of the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences, explains that the Perseid shower occurs when “the earth passes through the debris left by the passage of a comet.”
“The effect is similar to what happens when a car goes down a highway and passes through a cloud of mosquitoes. The car is the planet and the mosquitoes are the remains of the comet, leaving a trail as we pass through it,” she states. illustrates
The peak of the phenomenon will occur between Friday and Saturday, but these rains have already started in late July and will only end in a few days. In a normal context, the Perseids can reach up to 100 meteors per hour. However, this time they coincide with the phase of the full moon, so the number of meteors per hour is expected to be cut in half.
But how can the full moon interfere with the Perseids? Ricardo Reis says that it is a “lighting problem”. “Meteors are those very faint streaks that we see in the sky. The more lighting we have, the less we can see the less intense meteors. Fortunately, the Perseid meteor shower has the advantage of producing multiple, larger fireballs. and more meteors. bright and last a bit longer, so even in places that have some light, if we spend an hour looking at the sky tonight, we’ll almost certainly be able to see some meteors pass by, even with a full moon. “
In order to see the Perseids rain, it is recommended that, from midnight to dawn, you be in a place with a completely dark sky, “away from cities, without light pollution”. “The idea is that we stand in the air and look at the sky for an hour and see some meteors go by.”
In addition to the Perseids, there is also a supermoon to see in the early hours of this Friday. It is the fourth and last of this year. According to Ricardo Reis, the supermoon is “a full moon that occurs more or less at the moment of closest approach of the Moon to the Earth, what we call perigee”.
“It’s called a supermoon because, since it’s a full moon that’s a little closer to Earth than average, it will actually look a little bigger than other full moons,” he emphasizes.
“What happens is an effect that is not optical, it is more psychological, which is when the moon begins to rise, just at dusk. When the moon is lower, how do we have terms of comparison, like buildings or trees, our brain interprets the moon to be a little bigger than it is, but this is an effect that occurs every time the moon it is lower on the horizon and it is a psychological effect, below or above it will have the same size, although to our eyes it does not seem so. Then there is the physical effect of the supermoon, which is the fact that it is closer to us and appears slightly larger. In the case of the supermoon that has just been born, we have the superposition of the two effects, when it is born it seems gigantic”, which will give “a very pleasant visual spectacle”.
In Portugal, the visibility of the superlua will depend on the meteorological conditions, more like summer to birth, “we have an unobstructed view to the East, to the moon it will be, then it will rise not that according to the night it will evolve and it will be visible during all the night”.
Source: TSF
