Atlas of Earth's Meteor Showers

**2025 PROSE Award Finalist in Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, and Cosmology**The International Astronomical Union formalized the naming of meteor showers in 2006. Each newly discovered shower now is assigned a unique and officially recognized name, number, and 3-letter code. Close to a thousand possible meteor showers have since been reported, over a hundred in the cause of writing this book.Atlas of Earth's Meteor Showers takes stock of all reported detections by going back to the combined video and radar data in hand at the end of 2021, in order to weed out duplicates and false detections. Maps were created that show the direction of motion of meteors (their radiant) during 5-day and 10-day intervals throughout the year. All 500+ showers recognized are briefly described from their radiant, speed, and orbital elements, and the meteoroid mass distribution index was calculated. Physical properties of the meteoroids were derived from their beginning, peak and end height, from their deceleration in Earth's atmosphere, and from spectroscopic information. Candidate parent bodies are mentioned and the age of the stream was calculated from the dispersions in orbital elements and from the meteor magnitude distribution index. A brief history is given of the shower's discovery, of when features were first recognized, and of results from dynamical modeling, all with references to the literature. - Presents approximately 400 detailed meteor shower maps that show what showers are active on a given night for visual, video, and radar observers - Provides thorough descriptions of each shower that can be used in planetary astronomy and for meteor observing sessions, the discovery of new showers, and planetary defense - Highlights periodic, unusual showers that may be expected on a given night based on past occurrences that are important to satellite hazard avoidance and meteor storm chasing