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
Distance from a point to a plane Distance from a point to a plane In Euclidean space, the point on a plane formula_1 that is closest to the origin has the Cartesian coordinates formula_2, where The distance between the origin and point formula_2 is formula_5. If what is desired is the distance from a point not at the origin to the nearest point on a plane, this can be found by a change of variables that moves the origin to coincide with the given point. Suppose we wish to find the nearest point on a plane to the point (formula_6), where the plane is given by formula_7.