Could be a great Meteor Shower September 1

http://space.newscientist.com:

A rare meteor shower predicted to hit Earth on 1 September should give astronomers only their second chance to study an ancient comet's crust. It could also help them develop a warning system against an otherwise insidious threat – a comet aimed at Earth from the dark fringes of the solar system.

September's shower, called the alpha Aurigids, has only been seen three times before, in 1935, 1986 and 1994. The reason for this elusiveness is the shower's unusual origin.

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The Aurigids come from a comet that takes 2000 years to orbit the Sun. With such infrequent visits, Comet Kiess can't build up a broad dust band; it only generates a narrow trail of debris each time.

The showers happen when Earth passes through one of these dust trails in particular, which was thrown off by the comet in 83 BC. "It is only a very narrow trail, and it is only once in a while that it crosses Earth's path," says Peter Jenniskens of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, US.

He thinks the gravity of Jupiter and Saturn controls the path of the dust trail, waving it around like a garden hose, occasionally aiming it at Earth. Along with his colleague Jérémie Vaubaillon at Caltech, US, Jenniskens has calculated that the hose should be pointed at us again this year.

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Only once before have astronomers knowingly seen a shower from a long-period comet, when Jenniskens predicted an appearance of the alpha Monocerotids in 1995. They penetrated unusually far into the atmosphere, suggesting that they were made of relatively tough material, perhaps from such a cosmic-ray-produced crust.

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The best view of the meteors will be from the west coast of North America, before dawn on 1 September. Based on past showers, there should be up to 200 bright meteors visible per hour, and they may have an unusual blue-green colour.

The shower probably won't return for at least 50 years, according to Jenniskens' calculations. "It's a once in a lifetime event."

The Aurigids will have to compete with a bright gibbous moon. On the other hand, this Sunday night's Perseids will be in a moonless sky. That peak may be at 1:30am Monday morning, PDT.