Craig Isom finds magic in the skies above us, and the community around us.
You probably recall occasional headlines alerting you to an upcoming meteor shower expected in the night sky. A prime example is the Perseid Meteor Shower, which recently brought its annual show to town. The best meteor showers, like Perseid, occur when the Earth’s journey around the Sun takes us right through the trailing path of a comet. When comets near the Sun, they heat up, melt, and lose bits of gas and dust which stream behind it. Our planet then careens at great speed through this fine particle debris field and these grains of dust burn up in our protective atmosphere. The larger particles often generate brilliant streaks of light – what are commonly but mistakenly called “shooting stars.”
Okay, that said, if you’re like me, you then learn that peak viewing for meteor showers is generally in the middle of the night, and despite your best intentions, you once again fall asleep in your recliner and vow to catch it live next year.
Well not this year. When the Perseid Meteor Showers arrived recently, I headed for the Chabot Space & Science Center in the hills above Oakland. There, over 400 community members brought their jackets, sleeping bags and lawn chairs to the observatory deck to collectively look for those elusive streaks of light.
We got lucky. It was a balmy summer night, the pesky clouds parted, and we had the heavens above as our stage. With 400 pairs of eyes searching the Bay Area night sky, the anticipation of both young and old was palpable. And we were not disappointed. Suddenly, a speck of comet dust would streak across the sky, eliciting a collective “ooooooohhhhhh,” with inevitably, a few voices saying “I missed it!” Over the course of several hours, though, all had a chance to witness this celestial marvel.