2018 Chi Cygnids Mark Third Anniversary of September 2015 Discovery

Summary: The 2018 Chi Cygnids mark the third anniversary of the meteor shower’s September 2015 discovery via NASA-financed CAMS network.

Newly discovered Chi Cygnid meteor shower appears to radiate from Chi Cygni, a variable star lying near the midpoint of Cygnus the Swan’s neck: The SETI Institute @SETIInstitute via Twitter Sept. 18, 2015

The 2018 Chi Cygnids mark the third anniversary of the meteor shower’s September 2015 discovery via the NASA-financed CAMS (Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance) network.

Peter Jenniskens, senior research scientist at the Seti Institute and at NASA Ames Research Center, both in Mountain View, California, coordinates the global CAMS project. The Dutch and American meteor astronomer announced the meteor shower’s discovery Sept. 17, 2015, via Harvard University’s Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT).

Peter Jenniskens and Peter S. Gural established CAMS project, funded by NASA’s Planetary Astronomy program, in July 2008. The CAMS project aims at validation of the IAU (International Astronomical Union) Working List of Meteor Showers.

First deployment occurred Nov. 11, 2010, with CAMS platforms at California’s Fremont Peak Observatory and Lick Observatory. The CAMS-BeNeLux network started in March 2012.

Visual observers Koen Miskotte of the Dutch Meteor Society and Michel Vandeputte of Belgium’s Vereniging Voor Sterrenkunde (Society for Astronomy) are credited with first notice of the Chi Cygnid (χ-Cygnid) meteor shower. During the night of Monday, Sept. 14, to Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015, Miskotte and Vandeputte detected activity radiating from Cygnus the Swan constellation.

Martin Breukers and Carl Johannink of the Dutch Meteor Society confirmed the activity by way of CAMS-BeNeLux data. Breukers and Johannink operate CAMS-BeNeLux stations near the Dutch-German border in Hengelo, Netherlands, and Gronau, northwestern Germany, respectively. As coordinator and assistant coordinator of CAMS-BeNeLux, respectively, Johannink and Breukers transfer data to Jenniskens as coordinator of the global CAMS project.

Breukers and Johannink alerted Jenniskens to five similar meteor orbits in the CAMS BeNeLux multi-station data. The five orbits appeared in the interval between Monday, Sept. 14, at 19:23 Universal Time (3:23 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time; 12:23 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time) and Tuesday, Sept. 15, at 03:35 UT (11:35 p.m. EDT, 8:35 p.m. PDT, Monday, Sept. 14).

Reference to the CAMS BeNeLux candidates led Jenniskens to four more orbits via CAMS California. Jenniskens’ data occurred in the interval Tuesday, Sept. 15, between 03:10 and 12:45 UT (11:10 p.m. EDT, 8:10 p.m. PDT Monday, Sept. 14, and 8:45 a.m. EDT, 5:45 a.m. PDT, Tuesday, Sept. 15).

On Oct. 9, 2016, Johannink reported insubstantial activity in the Chi Cygnid stream for September 2016. Data revealed 36 radiant positions in a broad region around the Chi Cygnid meteor shower’s theoretical radiant in southern Cygnus.

Chi Cygnid meteor showers appear to radiate from a point near Chi Cygni (χ Cygni; Chi Cyg, χ Cyg). The variable star appears near the mid-point in Cygnus the Swan’s long neck.

Robert Lunsford, The American Meteor Society’s Meteor Activity Outlook weekly columnist, gave activity dates of Friday, Sept. 8, to Sunday, Sept. 17, in his coverage of the 2017 Chi Cygnids. He identified peak, or maximum, as occurring Wednesday night, Sept. 13, to pre-dawn Thursday, Sept. 14.

Observable rates are low. Lunsford notes that viewers should expect a usual rate of less than one shower member per hour. He places peak date’s observable rate at one shower member per hour.

The Chi Cygnids feature slow-moving meteors. Lunsford assigns an entry velocity of 15 kilometers per second (about 9 miles per second).

The Chi Cygnid meteor shower’s parent body is presently unknown. Jakub Koukal and Jiří Srba, both with the southeastern Czech Republic’s Valašské Meziříčí Observatory and Society for Interplanetary Matter (SMPH), and Juraj Tóth of Bratislava, southwestern Slovakia’s Comenius University, hypothesize the meteor shower’s cometary origin. The researchers suggest an unknown Jupiter Family Comet (JFC) as the Chi Cygnid parent body in their paper, “Confirmation of the χ Cygnids (CCY, IAU#757), published in the International Meteor Organization’s journal, WGN, in February 2016.

Jupiter Family Comets number among short-period, or periodic, comets. Short-period comets have orbital periods of less than 200 years. Jupiter Family Comets take less than 20 years to complete their orbits. Their name reflects the influence of the planet Jupiter’s gravity upon their orbits.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has assigned a three-letter code of CCY to the Chi Cygnids. The shower’s IAU number is 00757.

The takeaway for 2018 Chi Cygnids marking the third anniversary of the shower’s September 2015 discovery is that more data is needed to build a profile for the recently identified stream.

UK Meteor Network's Wilcot E camera catches Chi Cygnid meteor shower on discovery date, Monday, Sept. 14, 2015, at 20:22 Universal Time: UK Meteor Network @UKMeteorNetwork via Twitter Sept. 20, 2015

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

Newly discovered Chi Cygnid meteor shower appears to radiate from Chi Cygni, a variable star lying near the midpoint of Cygnus the Swan’s neck: The SETI Institute @SETIInstitute via Twitter Sept. 18, 2015, @ https://twitter.com/SETIInstitute/status/644877832078950400

UK Meteor Network's Wilcot E camera catches Chi Cygnid meteor shower on discovery date, Monday, Sept. 14, 2015, at 20:22 Universal Time: UK Meteor Network @UKMeteorNetwork via Twitter Sept. 20, 2015, @ https://twitter.com/UKMeteorNetwork/status/645528646816428032

For further information:

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