Radiant (meteor shower) Radiant (meteor shower) The radiant or apparent radiant of a meteor shower is the celestial point in the sky from which (from the point of view of a terrestrial observer) the paths of meteors appear to originate. The Perseids, for example, are meteors which appear to come from a point within the constellation of Perseus. Meteor paths appear at random locations in the sky, but the apparent paths of two or more meteors from the same shower will converge at the radiant. The radiant is the vanishing point of the meteor paths, which are parallel lines in three-dimensional space, as
Tricritical point more components. It can be shown that three is the "minimum" number of components for which these points can appear. In this case, one may have a two-dimensional region of three-phase coexistence ("F" = 2-3+3 =2) (thus, each point in this region corresponds to a triple point). This region (F=2, P=3) will terminate in two critical lines of two-phase coexistence; these two critical lines (F=1, P=2) may then terminate at a single tricritical point. This point (F=0, P=1) is therefore "twice critical", since it belongs to two critical branches.<br> Indeed, its critical behavior is different from that of a conventional