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The 1913 Great Meteor Procession occurred on February 9, 1913.〔(RASC.ca – The Great Meteor Procession (GMP) of 1913 February 9 )〕〔(RedOrbit – 100th Anniversary: Uncovering The Range Of The Great Meteor Procession Of 1913 )〕 It was a unique meteoric phenomenon reported from locations across Canada, the northeastern United States, and Bermuda, and from many ships at sea, including eight off Brazil, giving a total recorded ground track of over 7,000 miles (11,000 km). 〔Pickering, W. H. "(The Meteoric Procession of February 9, 1913, Part I )" in ''Popular Astronomy'', Vol. 30 (1922), 632〕〔O'Keefe, J. A. "(New Data on Cyrillids )", ''Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada'', Vol. 62 (1968), 97〕〔"The Great Meteor Procession of 1913", Sky & Telescope, Vol. 125 No. 2 (February 2013), pages 32-34.〕 The meteors were particularly unusual in that there was no apparent radiant, that is to say, no point in the sky from which the meteors appeared to originate. The observations were analysed in detail, later the same year, by the astronomer Clarence Chant, leading him to conclude that as all accounts were positioned along a great circle arc, the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth.〔O'Keefe, J. A. "(The Cyrillid Shower: Remnant of a Circumterrestrial Ring? )", ''Abstracts of the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference'', vol. 22 (1991), 995〕〔 John A. O'Keefe, who conducted several studies of the event, proposed that the meteors should be referred to as the ''Cyrillids'', in reference to the feast day of Cyril of Alexandria (February 9 in the Roman Catholic calendar from 1882–1969). ==Events of February 9== The evening of February 9 was cloudy across much of the densely populated northeast United States, meaning that some 30 million potential observers were for the most part unaware of the phenomenon.〔Pickering, 1922 (Part I), 633〕 Nevertheless, more than a hundred individual reports – largely from more remote areas of Canada – were later collected by Clarence Chant, with additional observations unearthed by later researchers.〔. Contains numerous witness statements and drawings.〕 At around 21hr EST, witnesses were surprised to see a procession of between 40 and 60 bright, slow-moving fireballs moving from horizon to horizon in a practically identical path. 〔 Individual fireballs were visible for at least 30 to 40 seconds, and the entire procession took some 5 minutes to cross the sky. An observer at Appin, Ontario, described its appearance at one of the most easterly parts of its track across Canada: A huge meteor appeared travelling from northwest by west to southeast, which, as it approached, was seen to be in two parts and looked like two bars of flaming material, one following the other. They were throwing out a constant stream of sparks and after they had passed they shot out balls of fire straight ahead that travelled more rapidly than the main bodies. They seemed to pass over slowly and were in sight about five minutes. Immediately after their disappearance in the southeast a ball of clear fire, that looked like a big star, passed across the sky in their wake. This ball did not have a tail or show sparks of any kind. Instead of being yellow like the meteors, it was clear like a star.〔. Contains numerous witness statements and drawings.〕 Subsequent observers also noted a large, white, tail-less body bringing up the rear, but the various bodies making up the meteor procession continued to disintegrate and to travel at different rates throughout their course, so that by the time observations were made in Bermuda, the leading bodies were described as "like large arc lights in appearance, slightly violet in colour", followed closely by yellow and red fragments.〔Pickering, 1923 (Part II), 102〕 Research carried out in the 1950s by Alexander D. Mebane uncovered a handful of reports from newspaper archives in the northern United States. At Escanaba, Michigan, the ''Press'' stated the "end of the world was apprehended by many" as numerous meteors travelled across the northern horizon.〔Mebane, A. D. "(Observations of the Great Fireball Procession of 1913 February 9, Made in the United States ), ''Meteoritics'', v. 1 (1956), number 4, 405〕 In Batavia, New York, a few observers saw the meteors and many people heard a thundering noise, while other reports were made in Nunda-Dansville, New York (where several residents again thought the world was ending) and Osceola, Pennsylvania.〔Mebane, 413-14〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1913 Great Meteor Procession」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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