THE CURRENT PERSEID METEOR-SHOWER

The Perseid meteor shower is one of the regular showers, occurring in August each year. Over the last few years, a new peak in the activity curve has appeared about half a day before the established peak. It was generally agreed that this new peak represented meteoroids ejected at a recent perihelion passage of the parent comet, and the recovery of Comet Swift-Tuttle re-enforced this view. A model by Wu & Williams suggested that this new peak should reach its maximum activity in 1994 rather than in 1993 and that a strong display, but not a storm, should be expected. We present here an improved model which again suggests that the 1994 Perseids should be marginally stronger than in 1993, with the peak occurring at a solar longitude of about 139.55-degrees. It is predicted that after 1994 the new peak will start to reduce.