Tuesday, September 6, 2022 – 9:09 PM
ABU DHABI, 6th September / WAM/ The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has approved 12 new meteor showers, which were discovered by astronomer Muhammad Shawkat Odeh, Director of the International Astronomy Center in Abu Dhabi and a member of the International Meteor Organization, and they were officially added on the official website of the Union “https://www.ta3. sk/IAUC22DB/MDC2022”.
The discovery came following analyzing the results of the Emirates Network for Observing Meteors and Meteors of the International Astronomy Center. This network consists of three stations distributed in the Abu Dhabi desert, and daily and automatically photograph the meteors that appear in the sky of the Emirates.
Muhammad Odeh analyzed the results of these observations over the period from the network’s operation in 2017 to the end of 2021, which included 76,765 meteors, and determined the orbit of each of them around the sun and its orbital elements.
A computer program was prepared to analyze these meteors and compare them with the known meteor showers using a method called “distance criteria.” As a result, the groups of meteors that do not follow any known meteor shower were identified. Accordingly, the International Astronomical Union was addressed and the new meteor showers and the meteors affiliated with each of them were identified, with the elements mentioned. Orbital in addition to the proposed name for the new shower. All the proposed showers have been approved by the International Astronomical Union, recorded and published on its website.
It is noteworthy that the Emirates Network for Meteor Observations is part of an international program sponsored by the US Space Agency “NASA”, in which seven other networks in the United States and one each in Europe, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Namibia, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey are participating.
The Emirates Network is the only one from the Arab world, and since its inception, it has contributed to many discoveries announced by the International Astronomical Union, and participated in many research published in scientific journals.
Wam / Hoda Ragab / Abdel Nasser Monem