Listen to Perseid meteor shower

Photographer Travis Morisse took this great shot of a meteor streaking across the sky near Hutchinson, Kansas.

Which reminds me, the Moon may obscure your view of the Perseid meteor shower, but you can still listen to the meteors. It's all thanks to NASA's SpaceWeatherRadio, which translates radio waves into sound. Radio waves are beamed into the upper atmosphere and bounce off of meteors. The "echo" of that is what you'll be listening to. It's eerie and fabulous. You can listen live, or check out recordings from meteor showers past.

Via Bad Astronomy

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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http://www.facebook.com/people/Abigail-Bellamy/100000505338210 Abigail Bellamy

It’s been a great year for meteor showers, moonlight and all. I observed the Perseids two years ago and it was amazing! I’ve found great viewing information on this site: http://www.spacedex.com/perseids – Hope you all enjoy the show!
scruss

Ah, so this means that the 6m meter amateur radio band will be busy
tonight, as 50MHz waves bounce rather nicely off meteors’ ionized
trails.
Antinous / Moderator

I forgot about the Perseids, went out at about 0200 for a breath of fresh air and immediately saw two huge meteors.
http://www.facebook.com/wheezil John Lilley

You can hear distant meteors without any equipment, and the sound seems to propagate at light speed. Search for example on “meteor sound pines” for an explanation. The first time I heard this, my family and I were in Centennial Wy laying in the back of a pickup bed trying to stay warm at 9500 ft. I said something like “hey you can hear them!”. My wife, sensibly enough, thought I was crazy until she heard it herself.