Perseid Meteor Storms

2000/03/15: Meta Research associate Esko Lyytinen of Finland made the only prediction of the Leonid meteor storm in November, 1999 that was correct for both the time and maximum rate of the storm (to within 50%). He used the exploded planet hypothesis's implied model for the nature of comets (i.e., orbiting debris clouds) as a basis for the prediction. That same technique predicted strong showers in 2000 and meteor storms in November 2001 and 2002, subsequently confirmed. Eclipse Edge Expeditions mounted expeditions to Cyprus in 1999, Guam in 2001, and North Carolina in 2002 to observe these storm events.

Turning the same predictive technique on the annual Perseids meteor showers of August, Lyytinen has discovered that the meteor streams associated with that comet will cross the Earth's orbit for the first time under conditions that might produce a storm or strong shower in 2004. If he is correct, encounters with the Perseids meteor streams will increase in intensity in the future, and may reach full storm levels by the time of the 2028 encounter. Here is Lyytinen's Preliminary Announcement, which you can read about here well before it appears in other astronomy news media.

Update on 2004/05/26: The latest prediction model for the 2004 outburst is now published in WGN. A brief summary has been added to the Preliminary Announcement.

Results posted 2004/08/14: A graph of early results for the 2004 outburst and enhanced annual shower activity has been added to the end of the Preliminary Announcement.