Observing Meteors

While I was camping in central Texas last weekend, a bright fireball meteor streaked across the evening sky and exploded into several smaller fireballs before fizzling out. It was truly spectacular, the most impressive single meteor I’ve witnessed, and I was lucky to be looking at a dark patch of sky at that very instant. But it left me with questions, as I realized I knew very little about where meteors originate and why they behave as they do. This might be a divergence from the usual meteorology – which focuses on hydrometeors, we’re more interested in fiery space rocks for today’s post – but I learned enough in my deep dive that I wanted to drop a few nuggets here on this forum.

Fireball meteors generally come from a specific region of the asteroid belt that experiences a resonance with Jupiter’s gravity that scatters asteroid debris through the rest of the belt and beyond into the solar system. In fact, about a third of all meteorites found on Earth originated from the same asteroid, Hebe, presumably broken off in an asteroid collision thousands of years ago. The fireball I saw traversed the ecliptic, tracing the sky between Jupiter and Venus, which makes sense as a meteoroid from the asteroid belt would likely need to stay in the plane of the solar system to impact Earth. Depending on semantics, this meteor qualifies as a rare bolide under some definitions, namely that the meteor was brighter than Venus and detonated under the pressure of the atmosphere. At least 3 smaller meteors were visible after the explosion, which was followed by a faint echoic pop, like a cosmic firework. I reported the event to the American Meteor Society, who collects anecdotal data for verification and record-keeping. It was pretty cool to see that my sighting was corroborated by a guy over 100 miles away in San Antonio, and maybe others will add details to the report!

Most of my fireball sightings have occurred outside of a designated ‘meteor shower’. That’s because meteor showers happen by a different mechanism: Earth passes through comet trails of ice and dust periodically along its orbit, hence why the position and peak intensity times are on a predictable annual schedule. Some showers can persist for decades or even centuries before debris trails dissipate – the Perseid meteor shower was documented by the ancient Chinese over 2,000 years ago, consistent due to the regular passage of the Swift-Tuttle comet every ~133 years. These meteor showers are more visible in the early morning hours, as this is when you look up into the direction of Earth’s travel. While the streaks of comet dust hitting Earth’s atmospheric windshield are still a sight to behold, fireballs are only marginally more likely to become visible meteors in the predawn hours since meteoroids travel at several times Earth’s orbital velocity.

There’s quite an interest in studying large meteors, not just for their stellar beauty but also for the existential risk posed to humanity. Surprisingly, there have been no documented deaths from a direct meteor strike, though a number of close calls have occurred over the years. Memorably, a house-sized meteor fell over a densely populated area near Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013, creating a shockwave that injured 1500 people. Just this month, a 2.8 pound meteorite crashed into a lady’s bedroom in British Columbia. Although the impacts of comparatively small meteorites are random and immitigable, NASA and other space/defense agencies worldwide are diligently working on technologies to intercept the next ‘big one,’ which historically happen over a period of about 250 years. Meanwhile, I will continue watching the skies, hoping that another impressive fireball might pass overhead.

Open Season

A few weekends ago, I went dove hunting. To be clear, I’m not a hunter. The prospect of killing an innocent living being for sport, particularly a symbol of peace, wasn’t much of a draw for me. Especially considering our mechanism for raining death – a scattershot of little lead BBs inflicting a mixture of penetrative and blunt force trauma, often not immediately lethal. Hunting is huge here in Texas, so central to the culture that I knew I had to try it to better understand my colleagues and acquaintances. When my buddy Clayton invited me to join the dove hunt at his family ranch in the Hill Country, I took a deep breath and willingly accepted.

To prepare for the trip, I needed to gather the right equipment and pick up a license. It wasn’t difficult to find a shotgun to borrow, as three separate friends generously offered to outfit me for this excursion. A sleek, 12-gauge, over-under, break-action shotgun. 75 rounds of ammunition, a mixture of #6 and #7.5 shot. A camo vest with deep pockets for shells and doves. Ear protection. A totable box to put it all in. I’m not too experienced with a shotgun, having only taken a beginner lesson and shooting a couple of ineffectual rounds of trap a few years ago. My colleague John, who graciously loaned me the gear, gave me a quick tutorial at his local gun range so I was reasonably comfortable when I set off for the hunt.

The ranch was abounding with life a few minutes before dawn, with rabbits, calves, and young white-tailed deer scampering in groups across the dewy grass. Our range was in a beautiful river valley, framed with green hills and dotted with century-old pecan trees. We fanned out around the perimeter, staking out our own flyways and communicating an awareness of where not to shoot. “Eric, that’s a dove!” was the go signal, and I raised my weapon to track the bird as it flapped toward the treeline. We broke our ranks and tailed the doves through the pecan grove, the thunderous “BANG! BANG!” of double-barreled shotgun volleys occasionally blasting through the quietude of the valley.

Doves fly in a distinct pattern that makes them an ideal target for sport hunting. Pointy wings with an identifiable white underside struggle to keep a plump belly aloft, causing the dove to bob semi-predictably in its line of travel. Also numerous were scissortail flycatchers, more slender birds with two long black tailfeathers, but they fly in a more chaotic spirals as they feed on swarms of insects. Much smaller swallows fly from tree to tree similarly to doves, but their lightweight frame allows them to flutter in bursts. After an hour of tracking birds, I managed to clip a dove’s wing, my barrage of pellets causing the bird to roll midair before flapping out of sight. I paired off with Clayton’s friend Hunter, who as his name might suggest had a bit more luck than I did, bagging three doves over the course of the trip.

We returned to the same valley that evening, roughly an hour before a big orange Texas sunset. Besides the flock of 20-30 doves that took off from the grass about 50 yards away and darted beyond the fence, our group didn’t have a ton of good targets. But I found out that hunting is more about the camaraderie and the storytelling. I thoroughly enjoyed talking with Hunter and JB as we not-so-sneakily followed doves around a beautiful patch of land. I was fascinated to hear from experienced hunters: evidently, when dove season opened the previous week, Clayton’s dad and cousin sat in the back of a pickup truck and shot the weekend limit on birds (15 doves per person per day) in just a couple of hours over a few beers. I’m a bit relieved that we only shot 8 doves for our group of 7 – I may have insisted upon cleaning and eating all the doves if we approached that level of success – and I honestly had a lot of fun out there.

I could’ve declined the invitation and remained firm in any judgment I had against sport hunting. However, I feel strongly that we should try to accept any opportunity for experiential learning, personal growth, and greater understanding. Since committing to this mindset of openness, I’ve done numerous activities that I may never have previously considered, including attending rap concerts and rodeos in Houston, leaving grad school to chase a passion, trying adrenaline sports like riding roller coasters in Missouri and skydiving in New Zealand, cultural experiences like partying with a homeless man in New Orleans and attending the Noodling Festival in Oklahoma, and much more. I overcame being a picky eater by trying new restaurants and accepting cultural delicacies whenever offered, a major improvement in my own diet and quality of life. I’ve hung out with people of all ages with a wide variety of religious backgrounds, nationalities, and political views. And you know what? Our differences don’t have to get in the way, as I’ve had fun and memorable experiences with nearly everyone I’ve met along the way.

Many thanks to Clayton for the invite and John for the equipment setup. I really appreciate having friends who can broaden my horizons and have a great time doing it! Maybe I’ll work on my shot and we can go back out there one of these days.