A big meteor shower, and early citizen science by newspaper
November 18, 2022 1:30 PM   Subscribe

How Newspapers Helped Crowdsource a Scientific Discovery in 1833 - In November 1833, the Leonid meteor shower was so unusually bright and intense that professor Denison Olmsted wrote to the local newspaper and asked readers to send in their observations. Other newspapers syndicated his letter, and he got responses from across the country. (Oh also, today's the peak of this year's Leonid shower.)
“As the cause of ‘Falling Stars’ is not understood by meteorologists, it is desirable to collect all the facts attending this phenomenon, stated with as much precision as possible. The subscriber, therefore, requests to be informed of any particulars which were observed by others, respecting the time when it was first discovered, the position of the radiant point above mentioned, whether progressive or stationary, and of any other facts relative to the meteors.”
-Denison Olmsted’s appeal reprinted in the Richmond Enquirer, Nov 26, 1833.
posted by LobsterMitten (5 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
I ran across this little article from the Library of Congress blog and thought it was just really cool.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:32 PM on November 18, 2022


This is neat. I was surprised to discover that people did not know what falling stars were in 1883. According to wikipedia, meteor showers were thought of as atmospheric phenomena prior to works such as Olmsted's. I had supposed that, since astronomy had been around for centuries at that point and people had identified comets and such then they would have had a grasp on meteor showers too, but apparently not.
posted by selenized at 2:28 PM on November 18, 2022 [2 favorites]


It would have been so difficult to feel that the Earth is a ball spinning through space, when no one had ever seen it whole and few people even had the chance to see planets through a telescope. But a big map of where the meteors were seen, and when, and the direction they came from would simplify beautifully on a turning globe.

I couldn’t find a copy of the paper Olmstead published with the collected reports.
posted by clew at 7:54 PM on November 18, 2022 [3 favorites]


If you're French, you're likely to know Jean-Baptiste Biot [Observations of L'Aigle meteorite - a landed meteor - 1803 ] as the Father of Meteorology. If you're Polish, German, Slovak or Magyar you're more likely to give that title to Ernst Chladni - all of those nations lay some claim to him as one of their sons - for Über den Ursprung der von Pallas gefundenen und anderer ihr ähnlicher Eisenmassen und über einige damit in Verbindung stehende Naturerscheinungen 1794 [Engtransl].
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:58 AM on November 19, 2022 [3 favorites]


In ~1998 I observed the Leonid shower by driving about 30 miles outside of the city to a dark site. It was clear all night. I saw an estimated 500 meteors, many of which left long-lasting trails and many of which were audible. Experience of a lifetime.

---

Meteor: a steak of light caused by a falling rock.
Meteorite: a rock, found on the Earth's surface, that fell from space.
Meteoroid: a rock in space that is destined to become a meteor. An asteroid.
posted by neuron at 7:42 PM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


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