Persaid History :: essays research papers

Perseid HistoryThis is the most famous of all meteoroid showers. It never fails to lead an impressive display and, due to its summertime appearance, it tends to picture the majority of meteors seen by non-astronomy enthusiasts.The earliest record of its activity appears in the Chinese annals, where it is said that in 36 AD "more than 100 meteors flew thither in the morning." Numerous references appear in Chinese, Japanese and Korean records throughout the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th centuries, but only sporadic references are make among the 12th and 19th centuries, inclusive. Nevertheless, August has long had a genius for an copiousness of meteors. The Perseids have been referred to as the "tears of St. Lawrence", since meteors seemed to be in abundance during the festival of that saint on August 10th, but credit for the discovery of the showers annual appearance is given to Qutelet (Brussels), who, in 1835, reported that there was a shower occurring in August th at emanated from the constellation Perseus.The first observer to provide an hourly count for this shower was Eduard Heis (Mnster), who found a maximum appraise of 160 meteors per hour in 1839. Observations by Heis and other observers around the realness continued almost annually thereafter, with maximum rates typically go between 37 and 88 per hour through 1858. Interestingly, the rates jumped to between 78 and 102 in 1861, according to estimates by four different observers, and, in 1863, three observers reported rates of 109 to 215 per hour. Although rates were still somewhat amply in 1864, generally "normal" rates persisted throughout the remainder of the 19th-century.Computations of the plain of the Perseids between 1864 and 1866 by Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli (1835-1910) revealed a very strong resemblance to semimonthly comet Swift-Tuttle (1862 III). This was the first time a meteor shower had been positively set with a comet and it seems safe to speculate that the high Perseid rates of 1861-1863 were directly due to the appearance of Swift-Tuttle, which has a period of about 120 years. Multiple returns of the comet would be responsible for the distribution of the meteors throughout the orbit, but meteors should be denser in the expanse closest to the comet, so that meteor activity should increase when the comet is near perihelion (as has been exhibit by the June Botids, Draconids and Leonids).As the 20th-century began, the maximum annual hourly rates of the Perseids