| Abstract from DBPedia | A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller than a grain of sand, so almost all of them disintegrate and never hit the Earth's surface. Very intense or unusual meteor showers are known as meteor outbursts and meteor storms, which produce at least 1,000 meteors an hour, most notably from the Leonids. The Meteor Data Centre lists over 900 suspected meteor showers of which about 100 are well established. Several organizations point to viewing opportunities on the Internet. NASA maintains a daily map of active meteor showers.流星群（りゅうせいぐん）とは、その軌跡が天球上のある一点（放射点または輻射点という）を中心に放射状に広がるように出現する一群の流星のことをいう。流星群に属する流星を群流星という。流星群には、毎年同じ時期に出現する定常群と、数年から数十年おきに活発に出現する周期群、突然活動する突発群がある。たとえば、ペルセウス座流星群は定常群、しし座流星群は周期群である。突発群としてはほうおう座流星群が例として挙げられる。 (Source: http://dbpedia.org/resource/Meteor_shower) |
