Finnish star-gazer discovers meteor shower - fragments of new comet pinpointed

Meteor shower could be sign of comet that could come dangerously close to earth

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Jarmo Moilanen, a municipal computer expert and amateur astronomer in the Finnish community of Vaala, has detected a new shower of meteors which originate from a hitherto unknown comet.
      Moilanen’s two monitoring cameras that he keeps pointed at the sky and linked to his computer, registered an unexpected meteor shower already in October last year.
      The discovery was published in the Finnish astronomy magazine Tähdet ja avaruus ("Stars and Space") on Wednesday. The original discovery report was published in co-operation with Peter Jenniskens, who is considered one of the world’s leading authorities in the field.
     
The comet itself has not yet been pinpointed, but it is believed to have an orbit around the sun that is about 4,000 years long. It comes closest to Earth just inside this planet’s orbit, and is considered one of the five most potentially dangerous long-period comets for Earth in the long term.
      Nevertheless, experts say that the likelihood of a collision with Earth in the coming millennia is very small.
      "It could be coming, or then the meteor shower could be material that it has left behind, such as dust or grains of sand. There is no sense in being too frightened by it", Moilanen says.
      It was confirmed this autumn that the shower can be seen each year in October. The name that was proposed for the the event is the October Camelopardalis, because the meteor showers linked with the comet appear in the sky near the constellation Camelopardalids, or giraffe.


Links:
  SETI Institute Unexpected Meteor Shower Reveals Presence of Potentially Dangerous Comet by Peter Jenniskens

Helsingin Sanomat