Astronomers predict a meteor shower due to debris from a near-Earth comet

Debris from the near-Earth comet 46P/Wirtanen may enter the atmosphere of our planet. This could trigger a meteor shower called the Lambda Sculptorids on December 12.

Space writes about this with reference to a study by scientists from the Paris Observatory, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The “ancestor” of a potential new meteor shower is comet 46P/Wirtanen, which was discovered in 1948. It revolves around the Sun every 5.4 years. It is much faster than other comets. For example, Halley’s comet takes about 75 years to orbit a star.

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“The results show a possible collision forecast for December 12, 2023 between 10:00 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. (Kyiv time). The level of activity of the “shower” is very uncertain due to the lack of information about previous meteor showers”– the scientists noted in the article.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Stub Mandrel

According to scientists’ forecasts, the possible meteor shower will be best visible from Eastern Australia, New Zealand and Oceania

Astronomers explain that meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through clouds of debris left by comets near the Sun. Its radiation heats them, the solid material inside the comet turns into a gas. This process is called sublimation.

As the gas escapes from the icy outer shell and exits the comet, it releases debris that forms the characteristic tails, also known as the auras or “comas” of these icy bodies.

“Garbage” from the debris can “settle” into the streams around the Sun, which the Earth goes through on about the 365th day of the cycle.

Debris enters the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 260,713 km/h. That’s about 100 times faster than the top speed of the Lockheed Martin F-16 jet fighter.

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Comet 46P/Wirtanen is about 1.6 km wide. It is part of the Jupiter family of comets, whose orbits are determined by the gas giant’s gravity and tend to orbit the Sun with a period of less than 20 years.

46P last approached Earth on December 16, 2018. It flew at a distance of approximately 11.6 million km. Scientists then discovered that it was a so-called “hyperactive comet” that released more water than would be expected for an icy body of the same size.

However, no meteor shower has yet been associated with Comet 46P/Virtanen.

Scientists decided to find out why this happened, so they calculated various models, in particular, how the particles will behave after the emission and what type of debris flow they will create.

The team concluded that the meteor shower associated with this comet must have contacted Earth several times in the past, but the low rate of entry of debris into our planet’s atmosphere may have prevented the meteor shower from occurring.

“Several past encounters with Earth and the stream have been identified, but as far as we know, no observations have been made. This may be due to the rather unusual ejection velocity required to deliver the large particles to Earth“, the astronomers added.

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