Transcript: April Week 3

PAUL
Welcome to Idaho Skies on Radio Boise. This is the third week of April. We’re your hosts, Paul..

RACHEL
..Rachel..

KRIS
..And Kris

PAUL
The moon is full on the 20th.

KRIS
April full moons are often called the Grass or Egg Moon.

RACHEL
I hope you weren’t planning to observe faint astronomical objects tonight, because the moon’s light will wipe out many of them.

KRIS
Astronomers call the apparent brightness of an astronomical object its magnitude.

RACHEL
The Greeks designed our magnitude system when they rated the brightness of the stars on a scale of one to six.

KRIS
The brightest stars were given a magnitude of one while the faintest were given a magnitude of six.

PAUL
So the fainter an object, the higher its magnitude.

RACHEL
Astronomers have further refined the system and use electronic sensors to measure the magnitude of stars and planets.

KRIS
The brightest night time object in the sky, Venus, can reach a magnitude as high as -4.5.

RACHEL
The faintest stars that the average person can see in very dark skies are still around 6th magnitude. Compare that to the faintest star you can see in the Little Dipper which is 2-1/2 times brighter at 5th magnitude.

PAUL
The full moon has a magnitude of around -12.7.

KRIS
And the sun, a brilliant magnitude -26.

PAUL
The Lyrid meteor shower reaches it peak on the night of the 20th and morning of the 21st.

RACHEL
Meteors are bits of cosmic dust entering into earth’s atmosphere.

KRIS
Most originate in the dusty tails of comets. And when the earth passes through the orbit of the comet, we get showered with the comet’s dust.

RACHEL
Most meteors burn up 60 to 80 miles above the ground and only the largest meteors can make it to the surface before they vaporize.

KRIS
The meteors we’ll see in the Lyrids are too small to reach the ground. Meteors that reach the ground originate in asteroids and not comet tails.

RACHEL
Meteors in space, before they burn up in the atmosphere, are called meteoroids. Those that reach the ground without burning up are called meteorites.

PAUL
Some meteorites are so rare that they’re more valuable than gold.

KRIS
As a result, some meteorite dealers have become millionaires.

RACHEL
Meteors from the Lyrid meteor shower have been observed for over 2,000 years, making the Lyrids one of the oldest known showers.

KRIS
You should only expect to see around ten meteors per hour from this shower, so it’s not a particularly strong shower.

RACHEL
However, it’s the first good shower we’ve had since January and it takes places when the weather is finally getting nice.

KRIS
Unfortunately, this year the full moon’s light will make it difficult to see the faintest meteors of the shower.

RACHEL
Meteors from the Lyrids will appear to originate in the low northeast early in the night and from nearly overhead after midnight.

KRIS
If you can’t watch the Lyrids, you’ll want to know that our next meteor shower occurs on the night of May 5th.

RACHEL
And this year that shower, the Eta Aquarids, takes place in the dark skies of the new moon

PAUL
That’s Idaho Skies for the third week of April. Next week our topics include Kibo and Gene Shoemaker.

For Idaho Skies this is Paul…

KRIS
..Kris..

RACHEL
.. and Rachel.