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So the cat was meowing outside the bedroom door this morning, so I got up to let him in. He loves to sit on the window sill and look out at the birds on the roofs of the houses across the street, but the sill is so high that he can’t easily jump up there. I opened the blinds and lifted him up to the window sill, and lo and behold, what greeted mine eyes? A meteor shower!
Dozens of the things! I’ve taken some photos, and will update this post with them in due course.
Apparently this is the Quadrantid shower, which happens in early January every year. Astronomers believe it to have been caused by a particular comet which broke up in our solar system in around 1490. Every year, the Earth happens to sweep through that region of the sky, and miscellaneous space junk crashes through our atmosphere, burning up — essentially, friction burn — and causing bright trails of smoke and vapour in the sky.
Update: Here are the photos. Click on each to download them in ridiculously high resolution.
