27 Oct, 2006 @ 07:44
1 min read

The Orionid Meteors

By Paul Downing

There’s an important and exciting astronomy event going on in the skies during late October – the annual Orionid meteor shower. A meteor shower is essentially a lot of what we usually call “shooting stars”.

Of course they’re not really falling stars, but grains of dust and tiny lumps of rock impacting the Earth’s atmosphere at 70 Km/second and burning up through friction. The Orionids are so called because they appear to originate from the constellation of Orion, and they are caused by the Earth passing through a trail of debris left behind after the passage of Halley’s comet.

The shower is due to occur during the night of October 20th, but to see anything you will have to wait until after midnight for the earth to turn enough on its axis to bring Orion above the eastern horizon. Wrap up
warm, take a pair of binoculars and sit facing east. If you manage to stay awake you could be treated to lots of “shooting stars”.

Did you know that scientists have different words for these things? When the particles are out in space they are called meteoroids, when they zoom through our atmosphere and leave those wonderful trails they are called meteors, and the ones which survive all the way to the surface are called meteorites.

Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor)

Jon Clarke is a Londoner who worked at the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday as an investigative journalist before moving to Spain in 2003 where he helped set up the Olive Press.

After studying Geography at Manchester University he fell in love with Spain during a two-year stint teaching English in Madrid.

On returning to London, he studied journalism and landed his first job at the weekly Informer newspaper in Teddington, covering hundreds of stories in areas including Hounslow, Richmond and Harrow.

This led on to work at the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Mirror, Standard and even the Sun, before he landed his first full time job at the Daily Mail.

After a year on the Newsdesk he worked as a Showbiz correspondent covering mostly music, including the rise of the Spice Girls, the rivalry between Oasis and Blur and interviewed many famous musicians such as Joe Strummer and Ray Manzarak, as well as Peter Gabriel and Bjorn from Abba on his own private island.

After a year as the News Editor at the UK’s largest-selling magazine Now, he returned to work as an investigative journalist in Features at the Mail on Sunday.

As well as tracking down Jimi Hendrix’ sole living heir in Sweden, while there he also helped lead the initial investigation into Prince Andrew’s seedy links to Jeffrey Epstein during three trips to America.

He had dozens of exclusive stories, while his travel writing took him to Jamaica, Brazil and Belarus.

He is the author of three books; Costa Killer, Dining Secrets of Andalucia and My Search for Madeleine.

Contact jon@theolivepress.es

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