{"id":17872,"date":"2019-11-21T01:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T17:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-says-much-anticipated-meteor-outburst-could-be-a-bust-for-the-west-coast\/"},"modified":"2019-11-21T01:00:49","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T17:00:49","slug":"nasa-says-much-anticipated-meteor-outburst-could-be-a-bust-for-the-west-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-says-much-anticipated-meteor-outburst-could-be-a-bust-for-the-west-coast\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA says much-anticipated meteor outburst could be a bust for the West Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_534119\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-534119\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-534119\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/191120-monocerotids-630x385.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"630\" height=\"385\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/191120-monocerotids-630x385.png 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/191120-monocerotids-1260x770.png 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/191120-monocerotids-768x470.png 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/191120-monocerotids-1536x939.png 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/191120-monocerotids.png 1884w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-534119\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This NASA chart gauges how many meteors are likely to be seen emanating from the Alpha Monocerotid radiant on Thursday night. Blue is good, red is not so good, and white means the radiant won\u2019t be above the horizon during the expected peak of the meteor shower. (NASA Graphic)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Skywatchers say parts of the world could see a brief, brilliant meteor outburst known as the Alpha Monocerotids on Thursday night, but NASA notes that it\u2019ll be at the wrong time for the U.S. West Coast.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it\u2019s a big deal:<\/strong> The meteor shower \u2014 which takes its name from the brightest star in the constellation Monoceros, the Unicorn \u2014 is a rare beast. It yields significant shooting stars only when Earth\u2019s orbit runs through a particular patch of space, as it did in 1985 and 1995. This time around, meteor scientists Peter Jenniskens and Esko Lyytinen say the best-placed observers could see hundreds of meteors in just an hour.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it\u2019s no big deal:<\/strong> It\u2019ll be dark over North America for the projected peak, sometime between 8:15 and 9:25 p.m. PT Thursday. But NASA\u2019s Bill Cooke is pessimistic about the prospects for an outburst, and he points out that the point of origin for the Alpha Monocerotids won\u2019t even be above the horizon for locations west of Denver. \u201cThat means people on the Pacific Coast will not see this outburst, even if their skies are clear,\u201d Cooke writes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What to watch for:<\/strong> If you\u2019re on the U.S. East Coast or in Western Europe, it\u2019s worth keeping watch from a dark place at the appointed time. If you\u2019re in Seattle, your safest bet might be to watch the skies for other attractions such as the International Space Station or SpaceX\u2019s Starlink satellites, and watch Twitter to find out whether the meteors went boom or bust. The next sure thing for meteor-watchers will be the Geminids&nbsp;on Dec. 13-14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This NASA chart gauges how many meteors are likely to be seen emanating from the Alpha Monocerotid radiant on Thursday night. Blue is good, red is not so good, and white means the radiant won\u2019t be above the horizon during the expected peak of the meteor shower. (NASA Graphic) Skywatchers say parts of the world [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4919,4599,4378],"class_list":["post-17872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-meteor-showers","tag-meteors","tag-skywatching"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}