What's Happening Today - Nov. 18

Meteors... everywhere!

Just about everyone on board was buzzing about what they saw last night. We hope you all had clear skies and good viewing conditions to witness this miracle of our universe. I personally have never seen such frequent or intense 'shooting stars' or meteors. It was fabulous. I got up around 3:30AM and walked up to the platform on the 02 level of the ship, just below the Bridge. As my eyes were adjusting I realized I was just about to walk on Maurice Tivey, who - like ten other people - was lying on his back gazing at the meteor shower. I took my place on the deck and let the moment take me. Gazing up at the star filled sky, the Milky Way a glittering brush stroke across the heavens, and about every 30 seconds a flash and a trail that seemed like the fairy dust from Peter Pan. I make wishes when I see a meteor. Needless to say I made many wishes last night.

I'll let some of the other folks put down their thoughts.

Best Regards,

Dan Fornari

0410L on ABE watch.
After ABE turned onto a new line I took off for the bow to watch the meteor shower. I took my time walking forward letting my eyes get used to the dark. As I neared the bow and the darkness gave way to the bright stars in the sky, I started seeing bright streaks going across. Expecting them to be all going in the same direction I was surprised to see how random they were. It was impressive with at least one a second at about 0415 and then less frequent as we neared 0600L. Some were so bright they looked like explosions in the sky and made you turn your head towards the flash. Al Duester said that one group had trailers that were visible for more than seven minutes. Trust Al to time them. It was quite beautiful up there since the light on the forward mast was turned off leaving the bow very dark. Of course there are plenty of navigation lights on the main mast. The sky was bright with the stars, then this bright object with a long tail would streak across the sky. Then 5 at a time would be seen in one section alone. Quite the show, hope you saw it.
- Rod Catanach

The Leonids
by Brent Garry

Quite a few stars shot across the sky, while others seemed to race, a few stars floated down at quite a leisurely pace. There were pairs that diverged, trios that merged, loners, and stragglers, and flamboyant, glittery stars that surged, but one, definitely, one, seemed to dance it's way down to the horizon, ending in a sparkly bang leaving a trail of it's Fred Astaire foot steps in smoke and grace, as if Zorro himself had carved a celestial Z into space.

There wasn't much happening at 2 am. but by 3 thing were ripping. That was, without a doubt, the most impressive celestial display of any kind I have ever seen, or am likely to see again in my lifetime. But I'll keep trying.

I saw sequential groups of five, bursting along the same track.

I saw short, impressive bursts that lit the ship and the entire sky like a giant flashbulb.

I saw parallel tracks of four, as if a giant claw had ripped a series of tiny shreds of bleeding green across the sky.

I saw a sky with 8-10 meteors simultaneously leaving tracks.

And I saw a massive, almost vertical entry that left streamers of orange, green, and purple plasma wafting sideways as it slowed seemingly to a halt. Its legacy was a huge glowing cloud - a glow that took seven minutes to fade entirely from view.

And we had a sky that was 70-80% obscured by scuttling clouds from time to time. I'd almost consider this lucky, because if we had a totally unencumbered sky, we would have had several cases of whiplash.

- Al Duester

"My neck is still sore"

-Al Bradley

An ordinary meteor shower occurs when Earth passes through debris left behind by comets. But this year, the Earth passed through a particularly dense ribbons of comet debris.

The Leonid storm occurred because the Earth passed through a trail of tiny dust particles left behind by Comet Tempel-Tuttle during its passage in 1767.

Tempel-Tuttle orbits the sun every 33.25 years, shedding dust particles as it is warmed by sunlight. It first crossed the Earth's orbit in 860 A.D. The Earth passes through some of the trail every year, but this year it was particularly close.

The next major Leonid storm will occur again in 2099, which will be one of its last tours.

In November 1833, the show was so spectacular many eyewitnesses feared the world was coming to an end.

Rod Catanach up on the Bridge using the RDF (radio direction finder) antenna to locate ABE after it surfaced. Rod was doing tests to see how far away the ship could be from ABE while it is in the water but still hear it on its radio beacon.

Ken Sims (left) and Hans Schouten during one of the nightly Science Talks in the ship's library.

"Catfish" Ed Popowitz up on the starboard crane getting ready to bring ABE on board.

ABE being lifted out of the water today after Dive #55. It collected data along 25 kilometers of track on the east side of the East Pacific Rise axis. We're analyzing the data now, it looks GREAT!

ABE being maneuvered on deck and into its cradle, at left.

Al Bradely (right), Rod Catanach (center) and Andy Billings carefully taking out ABE's brains today after the dive.

Al Bradley (left) and Dana Yoerger (right) two of ABE's inventors, discussing the operations in the Hydro Lab today.

ABE's tracklines for Dive #55 plotted over the multibeam bathymetric data for the East Pacific Rise crest near 9° 50'N. The lines are 1 kilometer long and spaced 40 meters apart. The letters represent the positions of the four bottom-moored transponders ABE uses to navigate itself during the dive. The tick marks on the axes of the plot are 500 meters. The 'pig-tail' at the left corner of the track box is ABE surfacing - doing pirouettes!