Nature's Divali enacted in midnight sky

NEW DELHI, Nov 17 (PTI) — A shower of sparkling meteors stormed the planet Earth past midnight Tuesday, producing a grand cosmic show watched by millions of Indians. Nature’s Divali was enacted in the sky as tiny meteoroids left behind by comet Tempel-Tuttle streaked past, putting up a display of spectacular fireworks that sometimes appeared as fireballs and sometimes as arrows.

A picture of the bright stars and a tail of meteor (at right) taken on early morning of Tuesday at Doi Intanon, Chaingmai province about 580 km north of Bangkok. — AP/PTI

Despite a little bit of haze and pollution, people in Delhi watched the spectacle from 1 p.m. onwards. However, enthusiastic sky watchers in Mumbai were disappointed. Waiting for the sight with coffee and snacks, they had to run for shelter as rains caught them unawares.

The Leonoid shower, so called as it appears to radiate from the constellation Leo, was best at quieter remote places away from city lights, tall buildings and pollution. It will continue till November 20.

As planned, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bangalore took precautions to protect its fleet of nine satellites from the onslaught of cosmic invaders. ISRO reoriented the satellites’ solar panels to present minimum surface area towards the approaching storm and switched off panchromatic cameras on its remote sensing (IRS) satellites.

Besides switching off all unessential equipment on its five INSAT satellites, ISRO scientists suspended the operation of X-Ray payload on IRS-P3 and gamma ray instruments on Sross-C2 satellite, which involve high voltages.

The gyros on-board INSAT satellites were, however, kept on to closely monitor the spacecrafts’ movement rates to detect any meteoroid hits.

Space department officials closely monitored the health of all the satellites from the spacecraft control centres — ISTRAC at Bangalore for IRS and Sross satellites and master control facility at Hassan for INSAT series — to detect any electrical anomalies during the period.

Designers of various satellite subsystems were present at the control centres to guide any corrective operations, if needed.

Star gazers in Pune and Bangalore were not so lucky as Delhiites as cloudy skies dashed their hopes of witnessing this rare event.

Ms Mangala Narlikar, wife of Dr J.V. Narlikar, Director, inter-university centre of astronomy and astrophysics, said she could see two meteors, one big and one small, yesterday at 6.25 am. "It was lovely," she told PTI expressing disappointment at not being able to observe them tonight.

A team of astronomers from the Nehru Planetarium here pitched camp in a remote village near Pataudi in Haryana to record the event.

Amateur astronomes, clubs and scientific institutions, including Birla industrial and technological museum and M.P. Birla Planetarium in Calcutta made special arrangements for viewers the celestial treat.

Doordarshan also switched off transmission a little before midnight until early Wednesday morning.

Every 33 years comet Tempel-Tuttle makes its closest pass by the sun. The comet, a solid mass of ice and dust, about four km in diameter, begins to melt and throw off debris, about 200,000 km wide, as it hurtles by Earth’s orbit.

Earth passes through a thin band of the comet’s debris every November but this year it encounters a denser band because the comet made its pass by the sun only recently — in February.

The Leonoid shower was last witnessed on Earth 33 years ago, when Tempel-Tuttle left behind an awe-inspiring fireworks of about 1,50,000 meteors per hour that was best seen in USA.

Experts say that this year South East Asia, especially China, is the best location to watch the dazzling display.

Earth’s sojourn through the comet debris, that began on November 14, will last till November 20.

Meanwhile, satellite operators around the world braced themselves for the Leonoid Meteor shower which could be especially critical for the space industry, which has not seen a storm of this magnitude in 33 years, the last time Leonid shower hit planet Earth, the space industry was still in its stage of infancy.

While some satellite operators said it was business as usual for them, others said they would shut down satellite instruments and place solar panels in a protective posture.

Japan, which has six operational spacecraft in orbit, said it planned to shut down its communications and broadcasting engineering test satellite to minimal functions during the Leonid storm.

The US space agency NASA’s orbiting Hubble space telescope performed "an about face" on the morning of the storm to turn its hardened rear into the path of Leonids.

According to reports, NASA said its other orbiting science platforms operated on a business-as-usual basis except Soho and the advanced composition explorer satellite located 2.24 million km from Earth.

Their instruments would be powered down and the spacecraft rotated 10 degrees to protect key sensors from being hit by the meteoroids.

The US Air Force which operates 300 satellites, however, said its analysis showed that it need not make any changes in its satellites to face the threat posed by the storm.

The 84-nation Inmarsat organisation which operates nine satellites in geostationary orbit has left nothing to chance. It has been conducting contingency drills for the past month to rehearse responses to satellite failures caused by Leonids impact.

BANGALORE: Earlier silent yet spectacular celestial fireworks, the "Leonid showers" caused by meteoric particles in the wake of the comet 55P/Temple Tuttle entering earth’s atmosphere reached its peak after midnight yesterday.

The meteors seen were bright red and blue and the fall occurred once in an hour. The rate increased as every hour. As the sizes of the particles were not very large, there was no chance of them falling on the ground.

The once-in-33-year phenomenon peaked between midnight and the small hours of Wednesday when the range of showers were somewhere between 100 and 1000 particles per hour.

With the constellation Leo rising after midnight, the meteor shower was witnessed in the eastern skies. When the sunlight breaks it would be seen overhead, the scientists at the IIA said.

The institute’s observatory at Hanle in Ladakh videographed the event, even as hundreds and thousands of people across the country watched the spectacular show that was not visible in 1966 in this part of the world when such meteorite showers associated with the comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle occurred.

CALCUTTA, (PTI): City's star-gazers were treated to a celestial spectacle of shooting stars streaking through the north-eastern sky last night, which was unusually clear despite a rainy day.

Thousands of sky-watchers climbed rooftops to watch the "flashes" as the tail of meteoids lighted up the sky.

As they keenly await a repeat shortly after midnight tonight, weathermen not certain about a clear sky, advised patience.

Met office sources said fresh clouds have moved in today and the "system" was not likely to change.

Enthusiasts have already rushed to rural areas in neighbouring south 24-Parganas, Hooghly and far-flung Bankura and Purulia districts to get a vantage position.

The viewers are preferring to view the meteors directly with Doordarshan authorities deciding to shut down its transmission from 11 p.m. tonight to 5.00 a.m. on Wednesday for fear of damage to the artificial satellite by the meteors.

Amateur astronomers, clubs and scientific institutions, including Birla Industrial and Technological Museum and MP Birla Planetarium, have made special arrangements for viewing the celestial marvel tonight.

A fortnight-long special show "Leonid shower" is on at the MP Birla Planetarium here.

BEIJING, (AFP): — China’s shooting star extravaganza began early today as the highly anticipated Leonid meteor showers made a stronger-than-expected showing, ahead of the peak tonight.

There were early sightings of the Leonid meteors in three eastern Chinese cities, almost 24 hours in advance of their expected appearance, the official Xinhua news agency said.

"I witnessed a number of fireballs, or shooting stars, which were bright enough to illuminate the faces of observers at the station," said Zhu Jin, a leading astronomer at the Beijing astronomical observatory’s Xinglong station.

He said more than 100 meteors an hour were seen between midnight and the wee hours of today, ahead of what is billed as the most spectacular meteor show in 33 years.