Andromedid Meteor Shower Maximizes Shooting Stars in November

Summary: The Andromedid meteor shower, usually appearing presently as a minor event, maximizes its shooting stars in November.

Andromedid fireball, Ferry County, northeastern Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014, 22:55 Pacific Standard Time: Rocky Raybell, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

The Andromedid meteor shower, which regaled the mid-18th to mid-19th centuries with outbursts, generally makes tame appearances in the early 21st century and maximizes its shooting stars in November.

Amateur astronomer Gary W. Kronk gives the Andromedid meteor shower’s current annual duration as spanning Sept. 25 to Dec. 6. He attributes the minor shower’s lengthy duration to the formation of a “conglomeration of ringlets.” Repeated close approaches to gravitational heavyweight Jupiter by the Andromedids’ parent body, Biela’s Comet, and also by Biela’s debris have subjected the cometary trail to orbital disturbances, known astronomically as perturbations. Consequently, the present Andromedid stream has separated into numerous filaments that elongate the shower’s duration.

After turning full Saturday, Nov. 4, the moon cooperates with 2017’s Andromedid meteor shower by transitioning through waning phases of waning gibbous and last quarter. Decreasing illumination by and, therefore, decreasing competition from the moon culminates in the invisibility of newness, which happens Saturday, Nov. 18. Waxing after newness continues to cooperate with the Andromedids by way of the waxing crescent’s thin illumination. The moon begins its retaking of the night during November’s last week. The first quarter moon’s less than 50 percent visibility on Sunday, Nov. 26, increases to the waxing gibbous phase’s 69 percent illumination on Tuesday, Nov. 28.

The 2016 Andromedid meteor shower produced minor displays in late October and most of November. In his weekly “Meteor Activity Outlook” column for the American Meteor Society (AMS), Robert Lunsford detailed the Andromedids’ shifting radiants, which regularly appear to venture into neighboring constellations.

For two weeks, from Saturday, Oct. 22, to Saturday, Nov. 4, the Andromedid meteor shower’s radiant appeared to lie between two fourth magnitude stars, Eta Piscium (η Piscium; Eta Psc; η Psc) in northern Pisces and Eta Andromedae (η Andromedae; Eta And; η And) in southernmost Andromedia.

Saturday, Nov. 4, found the apparent radiant at about 4 degrees west of Alpha Trianguli (α Trianguli; Alpha Tri; α Tri), a third magnitude star in western Triangulum the Triangle constellation.

By Saturday, Nov. 19, the radiant finally had linked with the shower’s namesake, Andromeda the Chained Princess namesake. Tracing the sparse shower backward led to a point about 5 degrees east of Beta Andromedae (β Andromedae; Beta And; β And). The second magnitude star resides in eastern Andromeda.

Paul Arnold Wiegert, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Western Ontario, studied the Andromedid outburst of Saturday, Dec. 3, to Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. Maximizing at a zenithal rate of approximately 50 meteors, December 2011’s unusual shower rates as the Andromedids’ strongest display in over a century. In an article written with three co-researchers, lead author Wiegert suggests that 2011’s intensity could be exceeded by the 2023 and 2036 Andromedids. With a predicted rate of perhaps 35 meteors per hour, the 2018 Andromedids might surpass the shower’s usual peak norm of one to three meteors per hour.

The researchers link 2011’s exuberance to dust produced by 3D/Biela’s perihelion passage in 1649, in which the comet marked its closest orbital point with the sun. Along with the Andromedid meteor showers in 2023 and 2036, three more Andromedids, before the study’s time interval of 2047, associate with the 1649-era dust trails: 2027, 2034, 2041.

The takeaway for the Andromedid meteor shower is that the shower, which often appears as a minor display, maximizes shooting stars in November and may somewhat approach 2011’s unexpected outburst in 2018.

Andromedid meteor shower's parent body, 3D/Biela, is considered a defunct comet, as evinced in prefix "D," and is the third known periodic comet, as indicated with prefix of "3"; 3D/Biela in February 1846 (top), shortly after its split into two pieces, and in September 1852 (bottom): illustration by Austrian astronomer Edmund Weiss (Aug. 26, 1837-June 21, 1917), Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt (1888), Plate XXIII, opposite page 27: Public Domain, via HathiTrust

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Andromedid fireball, Ferry County, northeastern Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014, 22:55 Pacific Standard Time: Rocky Raybell, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/rockyraybell/15586838810/

Andromedid meteor shower's parent body, 3D/Biela, is considered a defunct comet, as evinced in prefix "D," and is the third known periodic comet, as indicated with prefix of "3"; 3D/Biela in February 1846 (top), shortly after its split into two pieces, and in September 1852 (bottom): Edmund Weiss, Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt (1888), Plate XXIII, opposite page 27: University of Missouri -- Columbia, Public Domain, via HathiTrust @ https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mou.010012074658&seq=86;
University of Missouri -- Columbia, Public Domain, via HathiTrust (Link to this page scan) @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mou.010012074658?urlappend=%3Bseq=86; (top image: 3D/Biela in February 1846), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CometBiela.jpg

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