SYDNEY, July 29 (Xinhua) -- Australian stargazers are in for a treat with three colorful meteor showers this weekend.
The trio, Piscis Austrinids, Alpha Capricornids and Southern Delta Aquariids, coincide with the dark night sky of a new moon, which will provide the best viewing conditions.
Piscis Austrinids, which began on Thursday, will be on display on Friday, while the others will peak on Saturday, producing more than 30 meteors per hour at their peak.
The cosmic display will continue through to Sunday night with meteor showers usually lasting for about 48 hours.
The most spectacular of them should be Southern Delta Aquariids as it has the fastest-moving meteors and has been known in past years to produce about 60 meteors in an hour.
Explaining the phenomena, astrophysics doctoral candidate Sarah Caddy from Macquarie University said the meteor showers were caused by the remnants of ancient comets that astronomers sometimes refer to as "dirty snowballs".
"They are big balls of ice and dust that are left over from the formation of our solar system," she told Xinhua on Friday.
"As it slowly breaks apart when it orbits closer to the sun, they leave behind a debris trail.
"When the Earth moves into the path of that debris field, the tiny bits of dust and rock left behind collide with air particles and that friction burns them up and causes the bright bursts of light."
Although the natural light show will be seen all around Australia, the best viewing locations are in rural areas, far from the bright lights of the city.
Keen sky watchers are advised that the best times will be from 11:00 p.m. until predawn.
"On Saturday night around 11:00 p.m., if you look to the east, you will see a really bright object just above the horizon ... that's Jupiter," Caddy said.
"If you measure with your outstretched hand how far Jupiter is from the horizon and multiply it by five, that is roughly the point where the meteors will appear to come from."
If looking in the predawn skies, the best views will be in the west or northwest.
One person most likely to enjoy the shows will be astronomer Dr. Rebecca Allen from the Swinburne University of Technology.
Allen told Xinhua on Friday that, as the mother of a nine-month-old, she was often up at "all sorts of times" during the night.
"Certainly, I expect to get opportunities to look at the meteor showers," Allen said. "They are really such amazing spectacles; seeing those fireballs fall across the sky is always worth watching." ■
