Meteors: The Arietids Every year in early June thousands of
meteors streak across the sky. Most are invisible, though,
because the Sun is above the horizon while the shower is most
intense. These daylight meteors are called the Arietids. They
stream from a radiant point in the constellation Aries, which
lies just 30 degrees from the Sun in June. No one is sure where
Arietid meteoroids come from, although some astronomers suspect
they are debris from the sungrazing asteroid 1566 Icarus. Above:
"Hey Joe, what was that?" A fanciful view of a daylight Arietid
fireball, by artist Duane Hilton. Bright sunlight renders most
Arietids invisible. If you want to see a few Arietids, try
looking just before sunrise. The Arietid radiant rises in the
east about 45 minutes before the sun. (This is true for
observers in both of Earth's hemispheres, north and south.) Pre-
dawn Arietids tend to be "Earthgrazers"--meteors that skim
horizontally through the upper atmosphere from radiants near the
horizon. Spectacular Earthgrazers