What's Up - August 2013

[00:00:00]Music.

[00:00:02]Jane Houston Jones: What's Up for August. The Perseids and a Comet ISON update.

[00:00:07]Hello and welcome. I'm Jane Houston Jones from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

[00:00:13]If you've never seen a meteor shower, the summer Perseids are a great introduction.

[00:00:18]Meteor showers are the colorful debris of a comet or sometimes the debris of a fragmented asteroid.

[00:00:25]When a comet nears the sun, its icy surface heats up and releases clouds of gas and dirt

[00:00:31]forming a tail of debris that can stretch for millions of miles.

[00:00:35]As Earth passes near this dusty tail, some of the small dust particles hit our atmosphere and burn up

[00:00:42]creating great celestial fireworks for us to enjoy.

[00:00:46]The Perseids, the most popular meteor shower of the year, will peak Monday, August 12.

[00:00:51]The meteor shower radiates from the constellation Perseus, which rises in the northeast after sunset.

[00:00:57]Just follow the Milky Way from the south to the north to find it.

[00:01:01]You'll see some Perseids all month long, before and after midnight.

[00:01:04]But you'll see the greatest number of meteors after midnight on Sunday and Monday mornings

[00:01:09]on either side of the shower's peak.

[00:01:11]With clear, dark skies up to 100 meteors per hour are projected.

[00:01:17]But even if you don't see hundreds, you'll see plenty of fast, bright Perseids.

[00:01:22]Music.

[00:01:25]Jones: Comet ISON, which was visible at a very faint magnitude 15 point 5 from January through May

[00:01:31]is expected to be visible through small telescopes in late August.

[00:01:36]It should be visible low in the predawn sky, in the constellation Cancer near M 44, the Beehive Cluster.

[00:01:43]How bright will it be? Will its debris create its own meteor shower?

[00:01:47]Stay tuned for more news in the coming months.

[00:01:51]You can read more about small bodies such as comets and asteroids at

[00:01:55]www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch.

[00:02:01]And you can read about all of NASA's missions at www.nasa.gov.

[00:02:07]That's all for this month. I'm Jane Houston Jones.

[00:02:09]Music.

[00:02:12]NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology