As it turns out, the sky is a busier place than we thought

Sep 17, 2015 17:50 GMT  ·  By

Whenever our planet travels through trails of debris left behind by comets or maybe asteroids, meteor showers happen. Some are quite impressive, with dozens of fireballs streaking across the sky. Others are rather faint and so usually go unnoticed by lay people. 

Astronomers, however, are very much interested to document each and every one of them. This is because, since meteor showers are the result of Earth encountering cosmic debris, recording them means getting a better idea of the distribution of space refuse in the Solar System.

The sky is busier than we thought

To try and map the distribution of debris in our cosmic neighborhood, a team of astronomers pointed a network of about 60 cameras initially designed to keep an eye out for burglars at the sky and had them record each and every shooting-star that came into view.

With the help of these cameras, the research team recorded as many as 86 previously unknown meteor showers that, although faint, hint at the arrangement of the trails of debris our planet encounters while orbiting the Sun.

“The cool thing is we are not just doing surveillance of meteors in the night sky. Now we also have a 3-dimensional picture of how dust is distributed in the Solar System,” explained researcher Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute, as cited by Nature.

Over the years, skywatchers have reported about 750 meteor showers to the International Astronomical Union. Of these, however, very few have been confirmed by scientists.

The cameras used by specialist Peter Jenniskens and fellow researchers in their investigation were set in place back in 2010 and have since recorded around 250,000 meteors. 75% of these were found to be singular events, but the remainder were proper showers.

Thus, the study helped confirm the existence of 81 of the showers announced to the International Astronomical Union by skywatchers and also led to the discovery of 86 previously unknown ones.

What makes a meteor shower

As mentioned, the network of cameras that the astronomers behind this research project installed in northern California back in 2010 has so far documented some 250,000 meteors.

The scientists explain that, in order to qualify as a shower, such shooting stars must all originate from the same spot in the sky. If they don't, this means they are individual events and not the result of Earth moving through a well defined trail of debris.

Of the newly discovered meteor showers, one of the brightest is visible from the Southern Hemisphere in early December and the streaks of light all seem to come from the constellation Vela.