The Quadrantids ( QUA ) are a meteor shower that peaks in early January and whose radiant lies in the constellation Boötes . The zenithal hourly rate (ZHR) of this shower can be as high as that of two other reliably rich meteor showers, the Perseids in August and the Geminids in December, yet Quadrantid meteors are not seen as often as those of the two other showers because the time frame of the peak is exceedingly narrow, sometimes lasting only hours. Moreover, the meteors are quite faint, with mean apparent magnitudes between 3.0 and 6.0.
28-570: The meteor rates exceed one-half of their highest value for only about eight hours (compared to two days for the August Perseids), which means that the stream of particles that produces this shower is narrow, and apparently deriving within the last 500 years from some orbiting body. The parent body of the Quadrantids was tentatively identified in 2003 by Peter Jenniskens as the minor planet 2003 EH 1 , which in turn may be related to
56-690: A former constellation created in 1795 by the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande that included portions of Boötes and Draco . In early January 1825, Antonio Brucalassi in Italy reported that “the atmosphere was traversed by a multitude of the luminous bodies known by the name of falling stars.” They appeared to radiate from Quadrans Muralis. In 1839, Adolphe Quetelet of Brussels Observatory in Belgium and Edward C. Herrick in Connecticut independently made
84-669: A meteor shower that peaks in early January and whose radiant lies in the constellation Boötes . The zenithal hourly rate (ZHR) of this shower can be as high as that of two other reliably rich meteor showers, the Perseids in August and the Geminids in December, yet Quadrantid meteors are not seen as often as those of the two other showers because the time frame of the peak is exceedingly narrow, sometimes lasting only hours. Moreover,
112-438: A family of asteroids that move at low inclination and are close to the 3:1 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter. These were the first CM chondrites to be recovered from near the surface of the original parent body before it broke up, creating the asteroid family. Half a year later, in the evening of October 17, 2012, a bright fireball was seen near San Francisco. The first Novato meteorite , an L6 type chondrite fragmental breccia,
140-485: A likely impactor. When the final trajectory showed that meteorites would have fallen over land in Normandy, France, Jenniskens joined Francois Colas of IMCCE/Paris Observatory and other researchers and citizen scientists of FRIPON/Vigie-Ciel and guided the group to their first recovery of a 95g meteorite later that day. The next day, Jenniskens found the second meteorite, with a mass of 3 gram, the location of which verified
168-413: A mission to study the destructive entry of ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle Jules Verne on 29 September 2008, Orbital ATK's Cygnus OA6 reentry on 22 June 2016, and the spectacular daytime re-entry of space debris object WT1190F near Sri-Lanka to practice a future observation of an impacting asteroid. In 2023, small asteroid 2023 CX1 was spotted in space and four hours prior to impact announced as
196-670: Is past president of Commission 22 of the International Astronomical Union (2012–2015) and was chair of the Working Group on Meteor Shower Nomenclature (2006–2012) after it was first established. Asteroid 42981 Jenniskens is named in his honor. In 2008, Jenniskens, together with Muawia Shaddad, led a team from the University of Khartoum in Sudan that recovered fragments of asteroid 2008 TC3 in
224-465: The Genesis (September 2004), Stardust (January 2006), and Hayabusa (June 2010) sample return capsules. The beautiful reentry of JAXA's Hayabusa probe over Australia on 13 June 2010 also included the disintegrating main spacecraft. These airborne missions studied what physical conditions the protective heat shield endured during the reentry before being recovered. More recently, Jenniskens led
252-482: The Nubian Desert , marking the first time meteorite fragments had been found from an object that was previously tracked in outer space before hitting Earth. Since October 2010, Jenniskens has developed the global Cameras for All-Sky Meteor Surveillance (CAMS) project to map our meteor showers. Meteor showers are detected by triangulating the path of meteors recorded in a low-light video camera surveillance of
280-553: The 1995 Alpha Monocerotids meteor outburst (with members of the Dutch Meteor Society), proving that "stars fell like rain at midnight" because the dust trails of long-period comets wander on occasion in Earth's path. His research also includes artificial meteors. Jenniskens is the principal investigator of NASA's Genesis and Stardust Entry Observing Campaigns to study the fiery return from interplanetary space of
308-551: The January 3, 2008, Quadrantids . Jenniskens identified several important mechanisms of how our meteor showers originate. Since 2003, Jenniskens identified the Quadrantids parent body 2003 EH 1 , and several others, as new examples of how fragmenting comets are the dominant source of meteor showers . These objects are now recognized as the main source of our zodiacal dust cloud . Before that, he predicted and observed
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#1732765882843336-520: The University of Khartoum. The search of the impact zone began on December 6, 2008, and turned up 24 pounds (11 kg) of rocks in about 600 fragments. This also proved the first well documented recovery of many different meteorite types from a single fall. The next biggest impact over land occurred in California's gold country on April 22, 2012. One of the fragments landed at Sutter's Mill,
364-637: The comet C/1490 Y1 that was observed by Chinese, Japanese and Korean astronomers some 500 years ago. The radiant point of this shower is at the northern edge of the constellation Boötes , not far from the Big Dipper . It lies between the end of the handle of the Big Dipper and the quadrilateral of stars marking the head of the constellation Draco . This meteor shower is best seen in the northern hemisphere, but it can be seen partly to 50 degrees south latitude. The name comes from Quadrans Muralis ,
392-475: The extent of the glass damage. Traffic video records were collected to map the shock wave arrival times. In order to determine the meteoroid entry speed and angle, star background calibration images were taken and shadow obstacle dimensions were measured at sites where video cameras recorded the fireball and its shadows. Eyewitnesses were interviewed to learn about injuries, heat sensations, sunburn, smells and where meteorites were found. Meteorites found shortly after
420-587: The fall by Chelyabinsk State University colleagues were analyzed and the results from this consortium study were published in Science . In earlier collaborations, he discovered that an unusual viscous form of liquid water can be a common form of amorphous ice in comets and icy satellites (during a post-doc study with David F. Blake) and he created the first broad detection-limited survey of Diffuse Interstellar Bands in his PhD thesis work with Xavier Désert. Quadrantids The Quadrantids ( QUA ) are
448-649: The fall from video records to an area in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Moses and Jenniskens then joined Alexander Proyer of BUIST and Mohutsiwa Gabadirwe of the Botswana Geoscience Institute in a search expedition, which led to the recovery of an 18 gram fragment on June 23, 2018. Twenty-two more meteorites were found in October that year. In 2021, the results from the international 2018 LA meteorite consortium study
476-403: The meteors are quite faint, with mean apparent magnitudes between 3.0 and 6.0. The meteor rates exceed one-half of their highest value for only about eight hours (compared to two days for the August Perseids), which means that the stream of particles that produces this shower is narrow, and apparently deriving within the last 500 years from some orbiting body. The parent body of the Quadrantids
504-410: The night sky displayed at meteorshowers .seti .org . Jenniskens is the principal investigator of NASA's Leonid Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign (Leonid MAC), a series of four airborne missions that fielded modern instrumental techniques to study the 1998 - 2002 Leonids meteor storms. These missions helped develop meteor storm prediction models, detected the signature of organic matter in
532-656: The original and now-obsolete constellation. Peter Jenniskens Petrus Matheus Marie (Peter) Jenniskens (born 1962 in Meterik ) is a Dutch - American astronomer and a senior research scientist at the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute and at NASA Ames Research Center. He is an expert on meteor showers , and wrote the book Meteor Showers and their Parent Comets, published in 2006 and Atlas of Earth’s Meteor Showers, published in 2023. He
560-446: The quadrilateral of stars marking the head of the constellation Draco . This meteor shower is best seen in the northern hemisphere, but it can be seen partly to 50 degrees south latitude. The name comes from Quadrans Muralis , a former constellation created in 1795 by the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande that included portions of Boötes and Draco . In early January 1825, Antonio Brucalassi in Italy reported that “the atmosphere
588-565: The suggestion that the Quadrantids are an annual shower. In 1922, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) devised a list of 88 modern constellations. The list was agreed upon by the IAU at its inaugural general assembly held in Rome in May 1922. It did not include a constellation Quadrans Muralis. The IAU officially adopted this list in 1930, but this meteor shower still retains the name Quadrantids, for
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#1732765882843616-473: The very site where gold was first discovered in 1848 that led to the California Gold Rush. Jenniskens found one of three fragments of this CM chondrite on April 24, before rains hit the area. The rapid recovery was made possible because Doppler weather radar detected the falling meteorites. A consortium study led by Jenniskens traced these meteorites back to a source region in the asteroid belt:
644-632: The wake of meteors as a potential precursor to origin-of-life chemistry, and discovered many new aspects of meteor radiation. More recent meteor shower missions include the Aurigid Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign (Aurigid MAC), which studied a rare September 1, 2007, outburst of Aurigids from long-period comet C/1911 N1 (Kiess), and the Quadrantid Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign (Quadrantid MAC), which studied
672-497: The wind drift to which small meteorites were exposed. This established the location of the meteorite strewn field. In subsequent weeks, over 20 more meteorites were found with masses in the range 2g to 350g. In 2018, a second asteroid 2018 LA was spotted in space and tracked to an impact over land. Working with Oliver Moses of the Okavango Research Institute of the University of Maun, Jenniskens triangulated
700-465: Was found by Novato resident Lisa Webber following Jenniskens' publication of the trajectory of the fireball from video recorded by stations of his Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance project (CAMS). Three weeks after the February 15, 2013, Chelyabinsk meteor , Jenniskens participated in a Russian Academy of Sciences fact finding mission to Chelyabinsk Oblast. Over 50 villages were visited to map
728-427: Was published, tracing the fragments of asteroid 2018 LA to an impact crater on Vesta. The recovery of fragments of asteroid 2008 TC 3 marked the first time fragments had been found from an object that was previously tracked in outer space before hitting Earth. This search was led by Peter Jenniskens and Muawia Shaddad of the University of Khartoum in Sudan , and carried out with help from students and staff of
756-417: Was tentatively identified in 2003 by Peter Jenniskens as the minor planet 2003 EH 1 , which in turn may be related to the comet C/1490 Y1 that was observed by Chinese, Japanese and Korean astronomers some 500 years ago. The radiant point of this shower is at the northern edge of the constellation Boötes , not far from the Big Dipper . It lies between the end of the handle of the Big Dipper and
784-427: Was traversed by a multitude of the luminous bodies known by the name of falling stars.” They appeared to radiate from Quadrans Muralis. In 1839, Adolphe Quetelet of Brussels Observatory in Belgium and Edward C. Herrick in Connecticut independently made the suggestion that the Quadrantids are an annual shower. In 1922, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) devised a list of 88 modern constellations. The list
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