Aurigids Meteor Shower

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We were traveling East on I40 through the Mojave Desert. Around 4am we started noticing flashes of light to the northeast and southeast. I thought perhaps it was lightning at first or maybe my Bluetooth ear-bud reflecting of the interior of the car.
Then I saw it! Off in the North-East a bright bluegreen-white flash streaked across the sky in front of us. My girlfriend was trying to get some sleep but I couldn’t hold in my excitement any longer. I had seen at least 4-5 meteors so far and they were still coming!

I was trying to figure out why there were so many of them happening so fast when I remembered that the Aurigids Meteor Shower was supposed to be happening sometime in the next few days acording to an email I received from MeteoriteCentral.com’s Meteorite-List newsletter a few days before. It announced the shower and the time it was supposed to happen. As I recalled the shower was supposed to be best viewed in the southwest somewhere around 4am in the morning on September 1st! Hmmm…

It just so happened we were in the perfect area to view the shower. My girlfriend woke up and was looking out the window when I heard her so “Wow! I think I just saw a shooting star!” I said “You probably did, because I have seen like 4-5 of them already for the last 20 minutes…” She looked at me with one of those looks that say “Why didn’t you tell me?” and I feebly excused it by saying “Babe you were asleep, I didn’t want to wake you…” which got another stern look so I figured I’d quickly change the subject to avoid any further reprimanding stares.

She quickly forgot about my momentary lapse of reason and was now staring out the window looking for more shooting stars. I realized that I messed up and needed to quickly redeem myself. After driving some distance (about another 4-5 minutes) and seeing another 5-10 meteors streaking across the desert sky I suggested we pull over off the road a ways. She was all for it so I aimed the car for the nearest off-ramp.

We parked off the side of the exit ramp on some desolate and empty road that looked like it went nowhere. It was pitch black and there was not a street light to be found for miles. In fact there were no lights at all aside from the light on a few tractor trailers that were parked in the same area. There was no light pollution at all. I pulled in front of one of the semis and parked the car.

We got out and for the first time that night felt this sense of awe come over us when we saw another meteor flash across the sky in a brilliant blueish white streak of light that trailed off into nothingness. Beautiful!

This was the first meteor shower my girlfriend had seen EVER in her entire life! You see until that morning she had never even seen a shooting star before. We had talked about it before and I couldn’t believe it but it was true! I thought everyone had seen a shooting star at least once in their life. This made it extra special. Not only did she get to see her first shooting star it was her first viewing ever of an entire meteor shower. How cool is that?

Here is an excerpt from NASA’s website and article about the Aurigid Meteor Shower:

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“The source of the putative shower is Comet Kiess (C/1911 N1), a mysterious "long-period comet" that has visited the inner solar system only twice in the past two thousand years. In 83 BC, give or take a few centuries, Comet Kiess swung by the sun and laid down a trail of dusty debris that has been drifting toward Earth's orbit ever since. On Sept. 1, 2007, the dusty trail and Earth will meet.” SOURCE – NASA.GOV http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/08aug_aurigids.htm

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We stayed parked there for another 20 minutes or so until the shower subsided a bit.

The colors were beautiful and bright. There were blues, pinks, whites, and greens. The flashes and streaks of light were amazing and reminded me of a natural fireworks show. Never had I seen anything like it. It was great and to be able to experience it with someone who has never seen a meteor before and even more so because it was a meteorshower. It is unforgettable.

If you’d like to read more about the Aurigids Meteor Shower go here:
The AurigidsMeteor Shower

Yahoo News Article on the Aurigids