Armagh cameras catch unexpected outburst of meteors
A surprise flurry of meteors or "shooting stars" caught the eye of several casual observers in Western Europe on the night of 9–10 September. The meteors were apparently quite fast, with some bright enough to qualify as fireballs. They were recorded by the Armagh Observatory's meteor patrol cameras, which have been operating continuously at the Observatory since 2005. The event was quite unexpected, since no major meteor shower is active in mid-September. Its occurrence provides astronomers with interesting new data about the hidden trails of meteoroids—small bodies ranging in size from fine dust particles to objects of marble-size and larger—in the solar system and their supposed sources: comets and asteroids passing through the inner solar system.