Visibility of the Geminid meteor shower is likely to be poor this year because it will occur during a waxing moon and rainy weather, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said yesterday.
One of the three most prolific meteor showers of the year — along with the Quadrantids next month and the Perseids in August — the Geminids will peak between 9am today and 6am tomorrow.
However, the moon will rise at about 8:30pm today, which will make it difficult for sky gazers to see the shooting stars, the museum said.
Even before moonrise, observation of the celestial event will be problematic because of the heavy cloud cover and rainy conditions, the museum said.
The Central Weather Bureau has forecast rain nationwide until Friday.
The Geminid meteor shower, said to be one of the best this year, is expected to produce about 20 meteors per hour, the museum said.
Meanwhile, astronomical fans have been offered an incentive to brave the unfavorable observation conditions, said Chang Kuei-lan (張桂蘭), an assistant researcher at the museum.
US space agency NASA has developed a free iPhone application that has the capability to record data on the shower, such as the time and brightness of each meteor, she said.
With the use of the “Meteor Counter” app, enthusiasts and experts alike can record the data, which will be automatically uploaded to NASA for analysis, the space agency said.
“We want to include [sky watchers’] observations in NASA’s discoveries — and have them share in the excitement of building a knowledge base about meteor showers,” Bill Cooke, developer of the iPhone app and head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, said in a press release.
The Geminids originate from an asteroid instead of a comet, which is more common, Chang said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods