Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Thursday, July 31st. Today the Sun will be up for 14 hours and 41 minutes, setting at 9:09, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:29. The Moon, 1 day before first quarter, will set at 11:59 this evening.

Over the past couple of weeks folks who are outdoors after the Moon sets in the morning might have been seeing some shooting stars or meteors appearing to zip through the sky. The ones I’m talking about seem to come from the northeast. These are the precursors of the Perseid meteor shower which will reach its peak on the mornings of August 12 and 13 this year with the interference of a bright Moon. Over the millennia the meteoroid stream that feeds the meteors to our skies has spread out to last over a month from the latter half of July to three-quarters of August. I try to use the proper terminology for all this. A meteoroid is the tiny body in space. In the Perseid’s case the size of a grain of sand to a pea. Meteor is the streak we see in the sky as it burns up. A meteorite is the body that makes it to the ground. To my knowledge no Perseid has made it that far.

The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EDT, UT – 4 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.

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