The Tears of St Lawrence (The Perseid Meteors)
On the night of August 12th/13th the Perseid meteor shower can be seen, to
most people they are referred to as ‘shooting stars’, they have however nothing
to do with stars, they are tiny grains of dust burning up as they enter our
atmosphere.
Meteors are connected with comets, the Rosetta space craft
has just arrived at comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. As comets travel around the
Sun they leave a trail of dust behind them, if the Earth passes through such a
trail we see a meteor shower like the Perseids. This shower is so named because
all the meteors appear too radiant from one point in the sky, in this case the
constellation Perseus.
If it is clear around 60-90 meteors per hour can be seen
from sites that are not badly affected by street lights. These meteors come
from the trail of comet Swift- Tuttle.
A long time ago the Perseids were often known by another
name ‘The Tears of St Lawrence’
In 258 AD in Rome the Christian called Lawrence told Emperor
Valerian that he could give him all the wealth of the empire. Valerian thought
Lawrence was talking about gold and silver but he was referring to the people
of Rome. Valerian was not impressed and had Lawrence burnt alive. This was on
August 10th 258.
The following evening the Perseids arrived right on
schedule, but people looking up thought they were tears from heaven, ‘The Tears
of St Lawrence’.
Over a 1,000 years later the French explorer Jacques Cartier
was exploring the new world, the part we now call Canada. He arrived at a great
river and camped. It was August and at night the Perseids were doing their
regular display. Being the first European and knowing the story of the tears of
St Lawrence he decided to name that mighty river, the St Lawrence.
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