A lot of science requires a combo of luck and really hard work. In this story, researchers used systematic measurements of meteors to identify the paths of long-period comets. 

Using nine-camera sets scattered around the world, they watched for groups of objects that appeared to radiate from a single point in the sky. That point represented where the Earth’s atmosphere intersected with the debris of a comet or active asteroid that passed through our solar system in the past. With the longest period comets, objects that circle every 4000 years or so, the debris trails are super narrow, and using their nine-camera sets, this team has now identified nine new meteor showers with high certainty and an additional six possible debris trails. 

Building those nine-camera sets and analyzing their data is where the hard work came into play and having those showers occur when there was a cloud-free night sky overhead for some of those cameras was where the luck comes in. We can’t wait to see what all this team finds as they continue to look up and statistically analyze those glorious streaks we all can see with our eyes.

More Information

SETI Institute press release

“Meteor showers from known long-period comets,” Peter Jenniskens et al., 2021 April 20, Icarus