Editing 1249: Meteor Showers

|{{w|Quadrantids}} || Yes || Bring pets inside during peak activity || While keeping pets inside may be reasonable on days when fireworks are let off in the beginning of a new year, no regular meteor shower poses much danger to pets. || January 4th

|-

|Ticuspids || No || Not viewable in region 2 countries || Apparently a play on the {{w|tricuspid valve}} in mammalian hearts, or possibly on bicuspid teeth. The mention of "Region 2" is a reference to {{w|region locking}}, a digital rights management (DRM) scheme intended to restrict media to certain areas. DRM of course does not apply to natural events.{{Citation needed}}  However, meteor showers are also geographically restricted, and the visible area might roughly coincide with a DRM region. Region 2 covers a large and scattered area, including Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, and Japan: it is a meaningless geographical "region" for the purpose of astronomy. || January 21st

|({{w|Alpha Centaurids|Alpha}} / {{w|Theta Centaurids|Theta}}) Centaurids || Yes || Too faint to see without going outside || Since indoor lights and window glass make them harder to see, it would take a ''very'' bright meteor (like the Chelyabids two entries below) to be visible without going outside. || February 6th

|-

|Beta Aquariids || No || Inverted shower converges toward Aquarius instead of radiating away || This fictional shower would collect shooting stars into the origin to prepare for the real {{w|Eta Aquariids}} meteor shower associated with Halley's comet and ''diverging'' from {{w|Eta Aquarii}} in Aquarius; the real shower peaks around May 6th. Due to perspective, meteor showers appear to radiate outwards from a certain point in the sky. Meteor showers may be seen to converge on a point on the opposite side of the sky, but with the earth in the way there would only be a few visible going past the edge, seen as nearly parallel streaks overhead, so the convergence point would hardly be notable. || February 10th

|-

|Chelyabids || No || Only one meteor per shower, but it's big. || A reference to the February 15, 2013, {{w|Chelyabinsk meteor}} whose explosion shattered windows within a large radius. || February 15th

|{{w|Lyrids}} || Yes || Meteors sometimes scream || A meteor large enough to reach the lower atmosphere could produce sound audible to observers on the ground, but this is very unusual. || April 22nd

|Daytime {{w|Zeta Perseids}} || Yes || Likely a NASA hoax || This shower is mostly observed via its effects on radio and TV signals, and therefore a good target for conspiracy theorists responding to [https://web.archive.org/web/20160322133927/http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast06jun_1m June's Invisible Meteors - NASA Science]. || June 9th

|{{w|June Bootids|June Boötids}} || Yes || 50/50 mix of meteors and shooting stars || The "50/50 mix of meteors and shooting stars" is a joke, as "meteor" and "shooting star" are synonymous. || June 27th

|{{w|Southern Delta Aquariids}} || Yes || Meteors very bright, but stationary || This is saying that they are indistinguishable from stars, or that the stars themselves are actually meteors. || July 19th

|-

|Dromaeosaurids || No || Fast, highly intelligent, can open doors || {{w|Dromaeosauridae|Dromaeosaurids}} are a family of dinosaurs containing the genus ''Velociraptor'', well-known from the movie Jurassic Park in which they are presented as a deadly menace, fast and especially intelligent to the point of understanding how to open a door; this representation of Velociraptors is a [[:Category:Velociraptors|recurrent topic in xkcd]]. It seems, however, that Randall may have finally gotten over his fear of them; as of March 2024 (current newest comic: [[2906: Earth]]), this comic is the most recent mention of Velociraptors on xkcd. Velociraptors being able to open a door is also mentionned in [[135: Substitute]]. || July 22nd

|{{w|Perseids}} || Yes || Instead of falling from sky, meteors erupt from ground || Erupting from the ground is the funny inverse of falling from the sky, what meteors always do. || August 12th

|-

|Tau Pyramids || No || Visible even when eyes are closed || Probably a reference to {{w|Pyramidal cells}}, a type of neuron. The "tau" reference has two possibilities. The "visible even when eyes are closed" could refer to the Tau particle, a heavy sibling of the electron. When they traveled outside of Earth's magnetosphere on their way to the Moon, Apollo astronauts saw flashes of light about every three minutes even with their eyes closed; these were caused by high energy particles (cosmic rays) penetrating their eyes and brain. The other possibility is that it refers to {{w|Tau protein}}, a normal structural protein within brain neurons. In Alzheimer's Disease, abnormal Tau proteins can aggregate within pyramidal cells to form insoluble skeins. The number of these "{{w|Neurofibrillary tangle|neurofibrillary tangles}}" roughly correlate with the severity of cognitive impairment. || August 15th

|{{w|Draconids}} || Yes || Very slow, but follow you if you run || This may have something to do with the fact that "draconids" etymologically means "of the dragon", which could make for a fearsome meteor shower. And if you run it will track you down, albeit slowly. This may also be a reference to {{w|Boo (character)|Boo}}, a character in the Mario series of video games that is slow but follows you if you turn your back on them. In the game Terraria, meteors (or rather, "meteor heads") follow this exact behavior. || October 8th

|{{w|Orionids}} || Yes || Entire shower happens at once || Rather than taking place over the course of a week, all the meteors in the shower happen at the same time. This would involve about 3000 meteors appearing simultaneously, which would be quite an impressive sight. || October 21st

|{{w|Leonids}} || Yes || In 1966, unusually active Leonid shower killed God || There ''was'' a very active Leonid shower (a "meteor storm") in 1966, and a precursor to it in 1965. The article ''{{w|Is God Dead?}}'' was published in ''Time Magazine'' on April 8 of 1966. Perhaps this suggests that the meteors killed God earlier in the year when they and He were further out in the solar system? || November 17th

|{{w|Geminids}} || Yes || Can be deflected with tennis rackets || Meteors usually don't reach the surface of the Earth, being destroyed in the atmosphere. If they do approach the surface, deflecting them with tennis racquets would probably not be the most effective strategy,{{Citation needed}} unless Randall is implying that the Geminid swarm is composed of tennis balls. || December 13th