Perseids don’t disappoint

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I didn’t end up watching the Perseid meteor shower last night — I don’t need any extra sleep deprivation when I’ve got a 1-month-old at home, thank you very much — but SpaceWeather.com says “anecdotal evidence is mounting” that the predicted “uptick” in meteor rates early this morning, around 0800 UT (2:00 AM MDT), did indeed happen. If so, those hardy night owls and early birds who braved the inconvenient hour to watch the show must have been delighted.

In any event, SpaceWeather has posted a photo gallery of last night’s meteors. The gallery will undoubtedly grow as more pictures are sent in. And here’s a nice shot via Flickr, showing a Perseid, the Pleiades, and the Moon:


(Photo by Jon Lewis, republished in accordance with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.)

Technically, ignoring the unusual hourlong “burst” in the wee hours of this morning, the shower’s nominal peak would be between 1:30 and 4 p.m. MDT today — but obviously, you can’t see meteors during the daytime. After dark tonight, though, the sky will be worth another look. SpaceWeather.com now says: “The show could be even better tonight, Aug. 12th, than it was last night, Aug. 11th.”

P.S. Also note Google’s special logo for the day.

More of that transportation stuff

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I know I know, I babble on about this a lot… Still, I thought this article was really quite interesting.

Specifically this point:

During the same period, the Dutch have reduced their fatalities from 3200 to 800. If we calculate out the rate per 1000 people, the Dutch fatality rate is 40% of the American rate. This is remarkable, particularly when one considers that in 1975, their fatality rate was 20% higher than the US rate!

If we in American had achieved a similar reduction in fatality rates, our annual fatalities would drop to just under 15,000 a year – 22,000 less deaths than we currently experience. This means that every six weeks, we could save as many lives as were lost in 9/11! America has been motivated to spend tens of billions of dollars to redress the lives lost in 9/11, and sacrificed many personal freedoms to boot.

This dramatic savings of lives should be a focus of the next federal transportation bill. Congress, transportation advocacy and our communities all agree that the American transportation system has lost its way, and has no overarching message that excites our citizenry in the way that Interstate system did in the 1950s. Annually saving 7 times the lives lost in 9/11 could be the new focus.

I know a lot of this stuff can seem fuzzy and unimportant. But it really is very important and it goes to the very way we will live our lives and the types of communities we will live in in the future. It also goes to sustainability and the environment. Just getting higher miles per gallon, while a good thing, just begins to scratch the surface of the environmental impact of cars. Ultimately we are going to have to do much more.

Meteor reminder

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As I mentioned last week, the Perseid Meteor Shower is due to peak tonight and tomorrow morning, with a possible hour-long burst of ~200 meteors per hour between 2:00 AM and 3:00 AM Mountain Time (1-2am PDT, 4-5am EDT). Otherwise, “dozens of meteors per hour” are likely throughout the night, though the gibbous Moon will overwhelm the dimmer ones.

Aside from the expected wee-hours peak, the best time for meteor-watching may be between roughly 9:00 PM and 11:00 PM local time (wherever you are), when, according to the above-linked NASA article, “both Perseus and the Moon will be hanging low in the north. This low profile reduces lunar glare while positioning the shower’s radiant for a nice display of Earthgrazers.”

[Bumped. -ed.]