A flash of light illuminated the night sky over the Olympic Peninsula Wednesday night, leaving a dazzling but brief trail in its wake.
Astronomers believe the spectacular space show was likely part of the Orionid meteor shower, or, in the words of astronomer Dave Balam, it was a chunk of space garbage — in this case, debris from Halley’s Comet.
“This time of year we run into several garbage streams from ancient comets,” said Balam, the principal investigator at the Spaceguard Foundation, an international program that tracks asteroids and comets through the Earth-moon system.
“Whenever Halley’s comet comes through, it intersects the Earth’s orbit in two places. And we run through that intersection point every year on the same nights.”
The meteor’s brief appearance — lasting about six seconds at roughly 10:18 p.m. PST — was captured on cellphones and doorbell cameras across the West Coast.
Balam said civilian footage can be helpful in determining the trajectory of meteors and meteorites. He estimated that this meteor came in through the Olympic Peninsula heading from west to east and slightly south — straight toward Seattle.
“They very, very rarely make it down into the thick part of the atmosphere,” Balam said.
Karun Thanjavur, an astronomer and professor in the department of physics and astronomy at the University of Victoria, said social media is helping bring astronomy to more people.
“It’s becoming more often reported because people have cellphones, and they have all these dash cams and door cams and cameras all over the place, which are recording things from the sky,” he said. “So we get a lot more footage and that’s all posted on the web, so people get to see more of these events.”
Thanjavur noted meteors can be seen almost every night as “shooting stars” that aren’t stars at all, but pebble-sized rocks passing through the atmosphere at an unimaginably fast speed.
“The size is what makes this one a bit more interesting … the bigger the size, the more rare the event, but the more spectacular the show.”
The fall and early-winter months offer plenty of opportunities to catch more meteors. The Orionid shower peaks in the middle of October and ends around Nov. 7, and then the Leonids — associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle — can be seen starting Nov. 6 and ending around Nov. 30.
Finally, the Geminids — linked to a Palladian asteroid — occur from Dec. 4 to Dec. 17.
Meteor showers are best viewed with the naked eye, said Thanjavur, but anyone who wants to view space through a telescope and learn more about astronomy is welcome to attend the UVic astronomy department’s weekly drop-in open house on Wednesdays from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on the fifth floor of the Bob Wright Centre.
ngrossman@timescolonist.com
