Bird? Plane? No, it's a spectacular shooting star show over Dubai
What’s On has details of the meteor shower Camelopardalids over the UAE, as revealed on NASA website space.com. Find out the best place to see it.
The Dubai sky will be lit up by a meteor shower in the early hours of Saturday morning, one of the biggest and best astronomical events over the UAE for some time.
An historic moment in astronomy, experts predict Dubai residents could see approximately 1,000 shooting stars per hour.
Watching the shower in a location away from areas free from light pollution will be key and that’s why The Dubai Astronomy Group is hosting an event out in the desert.
The local stargazing club is expecting around 500 visitors to the Bab Al Shams Desert Resort And Spa on Friday night from 9pm through to 5am the following morning.
They’ll give live presentations, explain what meteor showers are, and show informative videos. They will also set up telescopes for people to look at planets and star clusters, as well as attempting to connect with astronomers in California.
Now, here comes the science. The meteor shower is called Camelopardalids and is the debris from a comet called 209P/Linear, which was discovered in 2004. On Friday night/Saturday morning, chunks of rock left by the comet will burn up in the earth’s atmosphere to form shooting stars. This is the first time the earth will pass through the remnants of this comet.
Abdul Wahab from Dubai Astronomy Group believes the light show could be spectacular. He said: “Based on professional forecasts this new meteor shower could be an astronomical experience of a lifetime and produce a unique meteor storm.”
Oh, and since you’re wondering about the name, it’s Latin translation is “camel with markings like a leopard”. Or ‘giraffe’, to you and me.