The FEDs Are Coming!

Based on six images of the sky that were taken in February, an astronomer (Dr. Peter Jenniskens with the SETI Institute and Ames Research Center) has established the existence of a previously-unknown meteor shower, which has been named the February Eta Draconid (FED) shower.  And this new meteor shower is causing quite a ripple in the media.

Meteor showers aren’t unusual–they occur whenever Earth passes through the trail of dust left behind by a comet passing through the inner solar system. We know of about 60-70 meteor showers—some weak, some strong. FED is a weak one, and another weak meteor shower isn’t really a big deal.

Astronomers haven’t managed to identify the parent body—i.e., originating comet—of this shower, but that’s not unusual, either, because that’s also true of a few other known meteor showers.

No, the FED shower has been in the news for a different reason.

See, since the unknown comet’s path intersects Earth’s orbit (which is what makes meteor showers happen) and they haven’t identified the parent comet (meaning we don’t know where it is), then theoretically there’s some possibility of Earth and the comet coming into contact.

Theoretically. It’s quite a dramatic and premature leap to conclude that just because the comet hasn’t been found, it’s going to hit us.  It could be anywhere in its orbit, or it may have changed its orbit. In fact, we don’t even know the comet’s orbital period (how long it takes to revolve around the Sun), and the comet may even have disintegrated or hit the Sun, which happens to comets every once in a while.  So there’s a lot more observation and study that needs to happen before anyone can say anything other than the fact that we’ve discovered another meteor shower – the FEDs.

As the Bad Astronomer said in his Discover blog last week:

…you don’t need to run around in circles screaming… it’s rude to others nearby, but also unnecessary.

Bing Quock is the assistant director of the Morrison Planetarium.