Annual Beta Herculids Briefly Shower Earth’s Skies Feb. 11 to Feb. 15

Summary: The beta Herculids briefly shower Earth’s skies Feb. 11 to Feb. 15, the shower’s annual activity dates, with peak activity around Feb. 12 to Feb. 14.

February’s beta Herculid meteor shower appears to radiate from an area near Kornephoros (Beta Herculis) in southwestern Hercules the Hero constellation; Hercules (HER) constellation map credit: IAU and Sky & Telescope (Roger Sinnott and Rick Fienberg; constellation patterns by Alan MacRoberts), CC BY 3.0, via IAU (International Astronomical Union)

The beta Herculids shower Earth’s skies Feb. 11 to Feb. 15, the meteor shower’s annual activity dates, with an expected peak around Feb. 12, Feb. 13 or Feb. 14.

Robert Lunsford, the American Meteor Society’s Meteor Activity Outlook weekly columnist, predicted peak activity Feb. 14 for the 2015 to 2018 beta Herculid showers and Feb. 13 for the 2014 shower. Carl Hergenrother, staff scientist with University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, assigned peak activity to Feb. 13 for the 2011 and 2013 beta Herculid showers and Feb. 12 for the 2010 shower. The IMO (International Meteor Organization) Video Meteor Network’s report for February 2010 noted the occurrence of the shower’s expected profile maximum on Feb. 12.

Increasingly luminous moon phases coincide with the 2019 beta Herculids. The first quarter phase Tuesday, Feb. 12, shines with 46 percent surface visibility and transitions to the waxing gibbous phase with 67 percent visibility, on Thursday, Feb. 14, and 77 percent visibility Friday, Feb. 15.

The beta Herculids’ name reflects the shower’s radiant, or apparent point of origin, in southwestern Hercules the Hero constellation. Beta Herculid activity appears to radiate from Beta Herculis (β Herculis; Beta Her, β Her), the constellation’s brightest star. Lunsford placed the radiant for the 2018 peak date, Feb. 14, at 3 degrees north of the third magnitude binary star.

Beta Herculis has the traditional name of Kornephoros (“club bearer”), a Greek epithet for the divine hero of Greek and Roman myths. Beta Herculis marks the Hero’s right shoulder in the traditional view of constellation Hercules.

In addition to its radiant status, Beta Herculis star hops binocular and telescopic observers to NGC 6210. The planetary nebula, discovered in 1825 by German-Russian astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve (April 15, 1793-Nov. 23, 1864), lies 4 degrees northeast of Beta Herculis.

Hercules the Hero constellation lies in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere, the northern half of the imaginary sphere projected by astronomy into space. The constellation’s farthest southern boundary stretches to about 3 degrees north of the celestial equator.

Lunsford describes the beta Herculid shower as producing “mostly swift meteors.” Beta Herculid meteors enter Earth’s atmosphere at velocities of 53 to 56 kilometers per second (32.9 to 34.79 miles per second), according to Lunsford and Hergenrother, respectively.

The beta Herculids are considered a weak shower. The shower has an expected rate of less than one per hour, even during peak activity, according to Hergenrother and Lunsford.

The IMO Video Meteor Network’s report for February 2013 described the month as “poor in meteor showers -- perhaps the month with fewest meteor showers of all.” Nevertheless, the network’s data revealed approximately 150 beta Herculid meteors. The report noted: “Between February 13 and 16, the shower is continuously among the five strongest meteor sources in the sky and reaches a rank of four, at maximum.”

The beta Herculids were detected through the IMO Video Meteor Network’s continuous monitoring database. In addition to the main data set 1999 through June 2009, meteors that were recorded from 1993 to 1998, prior to the IMO network’s start, were analyzed. The IMO Video Meteor Network dates to March 1999 with a first station in Germany’s westernmost city, Aachen, in North Rhine-Wesphalia state.

Amateur astronomer and BMW information technologist Sirko Molau and Jürgen Rendtel of northeastern Germany’s Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) discovered the beta Herculids during a check of the data for short duration showers. The authors’ check revealed nine additional sources, including the new shower.

As chair of the IAU (International Astronomical Union) Commission 22’s Task Group on Meteor Shower Nomenclature, Dutch and American astronomer Peter Jenniskens reported the recognition of the beta Herculids as a new meteor shower via IAU’s Central Bureau Electronic Telegram July 4, 2011. The IAU designates the new shower as 00418 BHE.

Molau and Rendtel identified between 322 and 326 degrees as the solar longitudes of individual orbits associated with the meteor stream. A conversion to Earth dates (Julian calendar) yields Feb. 10 to Feb. 15. The discoverers noted the activity dates as “a period with a generally low meteor activity and thus suited for the detection of weak sources.”

The parent body for the beta Herculids is unknown.

The takeaways for the February beta Herculids, which shower Earth’s skies annually from Feb. 11 to Feb. 15, are that peak activity by the shower’s swiftly moving meteors happens around Feb. 12 to Feb. 14, the shower’s parent body is unknown and the shower’s radiant, Kornephoros (Beta Herculis) star hops binocular and telescopic gazers to a Milky Way planetary nebula, NGC 6210.

Beta Herculis, namesake of the beta Herculid meteor shower, star hops binocular and telescopic stargazers to NGC 6210, a Milky Way planetary nebula; image by Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2): ESA/Hubble and NASA, CC BY 4.0, via Hubble Space Telescope

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

February’s beta Herculid meteor shower appears to radiate from an area near Kornephoros (Beta Herculis) in southwestern Hercules the Hero constellation; Hercules (HER) constellation map credit: IAU and Sky & Telescope (Roger Sinnott and Rick Fienberg; constellation patterns by Alan MacRoberts), CC BY 3.0, via IAU (International Astronomical Union) @ https://www.iau.org/public/themes/constellations/#com

Beta Herculis, namesake of the beta Herculid meteor shower, star hops binocular and telescopic stargazers to NGC 6210, a Milky Way planetary nebula; image by Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2): ESA/Hubble and NASA, CC BY 4.0, via Hubble Space Telescope @ https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1026a/

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