Perseid Meteor Shower

The Comet Hypothesis

On August 11 & 12 the Perseid meteor shower will have maximum visibility in the northern hemisphere. As a result of studies of these showers, which began in the mid-1800s, astronomers developed a hypothesis that they are the result of the Earth passing through the extended tails of comets. Eventually they ‘found’ comets which they associated with dozens of meteor showers, except the Geminids.

The primary problem with this hypothesis is that the periods of the majority of these comets – the years between their returning close to the orbit of the Earth, are, for example: Ursids 13.6, Leonids 33, Orionids 73, Perseids 133 and Lyrids 415 years. To imagine that the ‘tails’ of these comets, hundreds of millions of miles long, are sufficiently dense and remain so for such long periods that they produce meteor showers every year at the same date, is to stretch credulity.

Meteor Shower Particle Orbits

There is actually considerable scientific evidence which contradicts the comet hypothesis, which I discuss in detail in a 2010 post titled Geminid Meteor Shower Mystifies Scientists. This evidence is based on the photographically determined orbits of the meteor shower particles, which are completely different from the comet orbits. It shows that the orbit of each meteor shower is within the inner solar system. (Babadjanov, P., Orbital Elements of Photographic meteors, p. 287.) What is absolutely amazing is that practically every orbit is tangent to the orbit of the Earth at perihelion and the orbits of the particles of each meteor shower converge at these points.

Cyclic Catastrophism

Each meteor shower is material ejected by one or more convulsions within priori-Mars when the planet was in geostationary orbit of the Earth, and the point of each ejection is marked by the convergence of the remaining particles. Because of the recent activity and the massive amount of material ejected from that planet, there is still plenty of material, indeed all meteorites still falling to Earth were ejected from priori-Mars in the last 6,000 years.