Why more Eta Aquarid meteors in southern hemisphere?
Why does the Eta Aquarid meteor shower favor the southern hemisphere?
If you traced the paths of all the Eta Aquarid meteors backward, you’d find that the Eta Aquarids appear to stream from the Water Jar in the constellation Aquarius. This spot in the sky is called the radiant point of the Eta Aqaurid meteor shower. Because the Water Jar coincides with the celestial equator, the radiant of the Eta Aquarid shower rises due east all over the world. Moreover, the radiant rises at about the same time worldwide, around 1:40 a.m. local time (2:40 a.m. daylight savings) on May 5, the shower’s typical peak date. However, sunrise comes later to the southern hemisphere and earlier to the northern hemisphere at this time of the year. For that reason, the radiant climbs higher into the predawn sky at more southerly latitudes, and that’s why the tropics and southern temperate latitudes see more Eta Aquarid meteors than we do at mid-northern latitudes.
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