Memorial Day Weekend Meteor Shower Comet May Cause Fireworks

A meteor storm is expected to take place late Friday night and into early Saturday, and it may be the best of 2014. Comet 209P/LINEAR could be responsible for celestial fireworks, which you can view in the sky or live online.

The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project discovered the Comet 209P/LINEAR in 2004 that is likely to be the catalyst for this weekend's meteor shower. The forecasts call for anywhere between 200 and 1,000 meteors per hour at the peak of the shower between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. early Saturday morning.

NASA plans to offer live views from all-sky cameras at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama just in case inclement weather disturbs the viewing of the meteor shower. Trails of dust will be shed from Comet 209P/LINEAR, of which one could come within 4,200 miles of Earth's orbit, setting up a rare view for gazers. It is predicted that this could be the strongest meteor display of 2014.

Meteorologists say the best places to view the shower are east of the Mississippi or in California, but it can be viewed from anywhere in North America. The shower, Camelopardalids, will be a result of debris and dust emitted from Comet 209P/LINEAR. Two years ago, meteor experts at the NASA Ames Research Center said that Earth was due for an encounter with debris from this comet, and based on the evidence put forth, they are likely to be correct.

"We expect these meteors to radiate from a point in Camelopardalis, also known as 'the giraffe,' a faint constellation near the North Star," according to Bill Cooke, who heads NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, in this CNN News article.

"New meteor showers don't come along that often. It'll be the first time in a generation that a new meteor shower will show up," according to CNN Meteorologist Sean Morris, in the same article.

Comet 209P/LINEAR is a dim comet that dips into the orbit of Earth every five years as it loops around the sun. Despite speculation over the amount of the debris, experts are unsure exactly how much debris will be present because it all depends on the comet's activity over a century ago, which was when the debris streams were laid down. Although it's expected to be an extravagant shower, it could turn out to be a complete dud.

In the event of an exorbitant shower, North Americans will benefit best from the shower's viewing because it will be nighttime while the radiant is high in the sky.