At http://spaceweather.com, October 14th 2018, we learn that a burst of meteors seen over Europe was just the edge of a much bigger stream of cometary dust following in the track of the passage of a comet. The Draconids, they seem to appear out of the constellation of Draco, on October 8th and 9th, were just a shadow of their self as it could easily have been ten times more impressive. Earth seems to have narrowly avoided what could have been a storm of meteors as the orbit of the earth dissected the the debris track – seeming to nudge through a very light gap in the meteor trail. See image below …
… the image is derived a computer model of the trail of cometary dust. There is a lot of dust out there which has accumulated over a number of years.
The same story, taken from Space Weather, pops up at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/13/earth-narrowly-misses-massive-met… … where the comments swing around to the Bible and the idea of stars falling out of the sky – a meteor storm. In biblical cosmology, it is claimed, stars hang from the solid vault of heaven and form the heavenly host. They are also associated with angels, we are told – which sounds almost Velikovskian. He quotes a few verses from the apocryphal Book of Enoch (which is found in the archive of the Dead Sea scrolls – see www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/boe089.htm ). The idea of a flat earth below the dome of the sky, with fixed stars appearing to hang from the dome is common to a number of ancient societies. The planets move across the dome – and comets. In this we read, 'the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken by a might wind …' which is a pretty apt description of a meteor storm (especially if you have a fig tree in your garden or somewhere in the vicinity). However, after reading some of the comments, one is left thinking some of them would benefit from reading catastrophic literature. The idea the Sun literally stood still has been explained by a Tunguska like explosion on the near horizon (temporarily extending light through the early hours of night). The Genesis account of Creation has been explained as a post catastrophe event – a period of darkness that set in and followed by a gradual resumption of daylight. One commenter takes the Biblical author to task because he, or she, did not know that light on earth, at night as well as in the day, was due to the Sun, on the basis God is said to have created the lights in the vault of heaven on the third day. Interesting comments to read – and obviously mixed up with mainstream opinion.