* Astronomy

Texas State astronomer says meteor show was 7,000 miles long

On the evening of Feb. 9, 1913, a dazzling procession of meteors crossed over Canada and the northeastern United States, travelling northwest to southeast. Because the night was cloudy, the procession was seen by just a fraction of a potential viewing audience of 30 million. But it was sighted as far west as Saskatchewan at 7 p.m. Mountain time and as far east as Bermuda at 10 p.m. Atlantic time, putting the length of this light show at 2,400 miles.
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The meteor procession of February 9, 1913, was a unique meteoric phenomenon reported from locations across Canada, the north-eastern United States, Bermuda and from several ships at sea, including one off Brazil, giving a total recorded track of some 9105 km. The meteors were particularly unusual in that there was no apparent radiant, that is to say, no apparent 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.
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Google earth file: Meteors09021913.kmz (2kb, kmz)

An obscure painting by the Canadian artist Gustav Hahn (1866-1962) has played a crucial role in unravelling a literary mystery. It's a story that blends art, poetry, science and history, and involves not only Hahn but also a great American painter from half a century earlier, Frederic Church, as well as the poet Walt Whitman.

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"Meteoric Display of February 9, 1913, as seen near High Park. Drawn by Gustave (sic) Hahn"

Hahn's painting depicts a neighbourhood in Toronto's west end on a winter evening in 1913. At the bottom are a row of houses; above, we see the stars of the winter sky, including the constellation Orion. But the most striking element is a series of bright objects - apparently a stream of meteors - streaking across the sky. Hahn was an amateur astronomer as well as a painter, and his father, Otto Hahn, owned a valuable collection of meteorites.
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