4WD Touring Australia – June 2018

SHOOTING STARS

WELL, NOT REALLY, THEY’RE METEORITES.

Ahh, meteors, not only a model of mums’-

shopping-car made by Ford in the 1980s, but

also the catch-all term to describe shooting stars.

Against a sea of black, you’ll see them launch,

catch your eye for a second or two, in a blaze of

green or purple and then disappear spectacularly.

What we are witnessing in these situations is not

the end of the billion year life of some distant sun.

But rather bits of rock hurtling through space. And

where did these aming rocks come from? They’re

mostly debris that’s broken free from bigger rocks

(asteroids) and from comets.

They usually travel in clusters, which can look like

showers from the ground, and, when they come in

contact with our atmosphere, they ame up and

zzle out.

The Australian bush has long had a rep for

being the peak place in the world for catching

these shows. Especially in the tropics, because the

closer you get to the equator the more brilliantly

shooting stars become visible, especially if you’re

facing to the north between midnight and dusk.

The two major showers that bring stargazers out

of the woodwork, and lying down in open spaces,

are the Orionids in October, and the more prolic

Geminids, which appear two months later during

summer school holidays.

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