Rash youths and meteors

Geminid meteors will crash into Earth’s atmosphere tonight. But what is this falling particle?

The tiny stick figure on the right is Icarus, whirling down to his death in the Icarian Sea. He flew up too near the sun, which melted the wax holding the feathers in the wings made for him by his father Daedalus, who is gazing down at him. This was my cover painting for Astronomical Calendar 1997.

More in a moment about this painting and some others of the same size.

Whereas Icarus was the son of a master craftsman, Phaethon was a son of the sun-god Helius himself. He begged to be allowed to drive the sun chariot one day; lost control of the flying horses; had to be arrested for dangerous driving – brought down with a thunderbolt.

The myths are ripe for astronomical symbolism.  Asteroid 1566 Icarus, discovered 1949, and nearly a mile wide, goes from farther out than Mars to nearer in than Mercury. Asteroid 3200 Phaethon, discovered 1983, nearly 4 miles wide, goes closer to the Sun than any other object with a known orbit (though many others are observed to fall closer or into the Sun).

Here is my 1997 space diagram of the orbits of asteroids Daedalus, Icarus, and Phaethon.

Most meteor showers are caused by streams of particles that have separated from comets and continue roughly in their orbits. The parent body of the Geminids was long unknown. Fred Whipple realized that it was Phaethon, when this was discovered in 1983. That the Geminids are pieces of a rocky asteroid, rather than dust from a comet, explains why they are typically large and bright. And they move relatively slowly, because the orbit comes in sideways across the December part of Earth’s orbit. So they are more easily seen, and the shower is about the most reliable in our year. Its ZHR (zenithal hourly rate) is estimated as 150, though your actual count is liable to be less.

The Geminids’ radiant – the point in Gemini from which the meteors appear to radiate to all parts of the sky – will come up over the north-eastern horizon toward midnight, and climb higher as the night goes on, as shown in Astronomical Calendar 2022.

Unfortunately, this year, the Moon, not long past its full phase, will rise into view not long after the shower’s radiant does. Moonlight tends to drown out all but the brightest meteors. Your best chance to see these sparks from Phaethon’s crashing chariot is between radiant-rise and Moon-rise.

Twemty-four by sixteen

We continue to try to get rid of stuff. One large heavy lump consists of that painting of the fall of Icarus and ten others, all on 24-by-16-inch pieces of a brown particle board called, I think, Masonite. I had prepared the smooth sides with white gesso, made light gray by a touch of black. Another of the pictures is of a factory seen from the bypass road north of Greenville, South Carolina.

And there are three roadscapes, five nudes, and an imaginary towering landscape..

It’s rash to make large stiff pictures if you don’t hold exhibitions or make other attempts to get rid of them.

I don’t think Masonite can be recycled, so it may all go into the trash pickup next Tuesday.

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