Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
With bright meteors blazing across the sky from the Aquariids meteor shower and a chance to see a lunar eclipse, Friday will be the time to look up to the sky for a day of spectacular celestial events.
Anyone venturing out to spot a meteor with this year's Aquariids show could see up to 20 meteors per hour, but you'll have to be up early — the best times to try to see a meteor will be just before dawn on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. The event's estimated peak time is at 11 a.m. ET Saturday.
Alongside the shower comes the May flower moon, the first full moon of the "month of flower," and its almost perfect alignment with the sun and Earth. That alignment will create what is known as a penumbral lunar eclipse, which is when the moon enters Earth's outer shadow. This event will be between 11:13 a.m. and 3:31 p.m. ET Friday but won't be visible in the Americas because the moon isn't up then. But it will cause a dimming of the lunar surface for those in Africa, Asia and Australia.
The collision of celestial events might be exciting for space enthusiasts, but together they could hinder your view. With the moon completely full, the Aquariids will have to compete with some bright light interference to be seen in the night sky.
"I would suggest going out around 3 o'clock in the morning. Get a lawn chair and put the moon at your back," said Robert Lunsford, fireball report coordinator for the American Meteor Society. "Look for these fast meteors shooting upward from the eastern horizon. Not all meteors you see will be Eta Aquariids, but they're easy to tell because the Eta Aquariids are very fast."
During an eclipse, the shadow Earth casts is broken up into two sections: the umbra, which is the dark centre, and the penumbra, the fainter outer shadow. During a penumbral eclipse, the moon stays on this outer ring, appearing as if it is dimming, but not completely darkening like a total lunar eclipse.
"The moon passes through the portion of the Earth's shadow, and because it grazes the shadow it's not quite as much distance as when it passes through the entire shadow of the Earth," said Noah Petro, chief of NASA's Planetary Geology, Geophysics and Geochemistry Lab, noting that it will be hard for someone to see. "The dimming of the moon is very slight, but if someone is in a dark place, they may notice the full moon is not quite as bright as normal."
Still, Petro encouraged people in Asia and Australia to get out and see the lunar eclipse.
"Any chance people have to get out and look at the moon is an excellent opportunity to connect with our moon. Eclipses (penumbral or total) are great excuses to take a look at the moon and start looking at it more regularly!"
Every annual meteor shower has a radiant, the constellation from which the meteors appear to be originating. The Aquariids constellation is Aquarius, hence the shower's name, and lies on the ecliptic, the sun's path in the sky.
The Aquariids are only visible just before dawn since the radiant rises a few hours before the sun does, limiting the evening hours in which you can see them.
Those in northern areas, such as Canada, will have a smaller window to see activity, the American Meteor Society's Lunsford said, while those in the Southern Hemisphere will have a slightly longer time frame where the radiant will be up, and the sun will still be down.
The Aquariids typically produce meteors that are faster than others, including the last event of the Lyrids in April, which means they tend to produce more persistent trains, smoke trails caused by disintegration of the blazing-fast meteors. A meteor's speed is determined by the angle in which it encounters Earth, with the Aquariids mostly colliding with the atmosphere head-on, Lunsford said.
Lunsford also mentioned that this year's peak is expected to see slightly more meteors per hour, and next year even more so due to perturbation that has caused the debris trail to move closer to Earth. In 2024, Lunsford estimates that those within the Southern Tropics could see a range of 75 to 100 meteors per hour.
"You don't need expensive equipment; it is a way that you can participate in astronomy without spending a lot of money, and it's fun," Lunsford said. "You can actually make useful scientific contributions by counting the number of meteors you see and trying to separate them into Lyrids or non-Lyrids.
"Besides, it's like having an early Fourth of July celebration ... to see a shooting star. And, who knows, you can make a whole lot of wishes if you see a bunch."
The Eta Aquariids will be hanging around until May 27, but if you missed their peak, there are plenty more opportunities to spot a meteor.
Here are the remaining meteor showers of 2023 and their peak dates:
The penumbral lunar eclipse event is only viewable to those in certain parts of the world, but there are other chances to see an eclipse in your area:
If you live in North, Central or South America, an annular solar eclipse will take place on October 14, when the moon moves in front of the Earth's view of the sun, creating a crisp, fiery circle in the sky.
On October 28, a partial lunar eclipse will be viewable in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, parts of North America and much of South America.
This year will have 13 full moons, with two in August. Here's the list of full moons remaining in 2023, according to the Farmers' Almanac:
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.