14 DAY TRIAL // On October 8 and 9, 2011 the Draconid meteor shower put on quite a show, and apparently even left something behind for us to remember it by.
Scientists working with the Spanish National Research Center say that this shower deposited about a ton of meteoric material in our planet's atmosphere.
According to Science Daily, this shower of shooting stars was one of the most intense to have been recorded during the last 10 years, meaning that as many as 400 meteors were recorded in just one hour's time when the shower was at its peak.
The Draconid meteor shower forms because, every 6.6 years, the comet's Giacobini-Zinner comes close enough to the Sun to sublimate ice and eject particles.
These particles cluster together and hit Earth's atmosphere each year in early October.
As Josep Maria Trigo explains, “When a comet approaches the Sun, it sublimates part of its superficial ice and the gas pressure drives a huge number of particles that adopt orbits around the Sun, forming authentic swarms.”
“The study shows that in the evening from October 8th to 9th 2011, the Earth intercepted three dense spindles of particles left behind by the comet when it crossed through the perihelion.”