Meteor Showers and their Parent Comets

A unique handbook for amateur and professional astronomers explains the causes of meteor showers on Earth.

Peter Jenniskens (Author)

9780521853491, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 September 2006

804 pages, 380 b/w illus.
25.4 x 18 x 4.2 cm, 1.73 kg

'I got my copy of Jenniskens' book today … it is well-bound, thick with plots, tables, and nice pictures, plus a lot of useful data, and boy does it smell good!' http://dorigo.wordpress.com

Meteor Showers and their Parent Comets is a unique handbook for astronomers interested in observing meteor storms and outbursts. Spectacular displays of 'shooting stars' are created when the Earth's orbit crosses a meteoroid stream, as each meteoroid causes a bright light when it enters our atmosphere at high speed. Jenniskens, an active meteor storm chaser, explains how meteoroid streams originate from the decay of meteoroids, comets and asteroids, and how they cause meteor showers on Earth. He includes the findings of recent space missions to comets and asteroids, the risk of meteor impacts on Earth, and how meteor showers may have seeded the Earth with ingredients that made life possible. All known meteor showers are identified, accompanied by fascinating details on the most important showers and their parent comets. The book predicts when exceptional meteor showers will occur over the next fifty years, making it a valuable resource for both amateur and professional astronomers.

Part I. Introduction: 1. How meteor showers were linked to comets
2. What is at the core of comets?
3. The formation of meteoroid streams
4. Meteors from meteoroid impacts in Earth
5. Comet and meteoroid orbits in space and time
Part II. Parent Bodies: 6. Long period comets
7. Halley-type comets
8. Jupiter-family comets
9. Fading comets of the inner solar system
10. Asteroids
Part III. Young Streams from Whipple-type Ejection: 11. What planets do to dust trails
12. Meteor storm chasing
13. Meteor outbursts from long-period comets
14. Trapped: the Leonid Filament
15. The Leonid storms
16. The Ursids
17. The Perseids
18. Other Halley-type comets
19. Dust trails of Jupiter-family comets
Part IV. Young Streams from Comet Fragmentation: 20. Broken comets
21. Quadrantids
22. Geminids
23. The sunskirting streams: Arietids and delta-Aquariids
24. Alpha-Capricornids and kappa-Cygnids
25. The Taurid complex
Part V. Old Streams and Sporadic Meteoroids: 26. Annual showers
27. Dispersion from gradually evolving parent body orbits
28. The ecliptic streams
29. Toroidal streams
30. Meteor showers from asteroids
31. Sporadic meteors and the zodiacal cloud
Part VI. Impact and Relevance of Meteor Showers: 32. Impact!
33. Meteor showers on other planets
34. Meteors and the origin of life
Appendices.

Subject Areas: Solar system: the Sun & planets [PGS], Astronomy, space & time [PG]