Meteor Showers Archives

May 4, 2016 by Bob King

2016 Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower Peaks May 5-6

A bright Eta Aquarid earthgrazer streaks across the northern lights in May 2013. Credit: Bob King

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks shortly before dawn on Friday and Saturday mornings. The radiant lies in Aquarius near the star Eta. Diagram: Bob King, source: Stellarium — The Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks shortly before dawn on Thursday and Friday mornings. The radiant lies in Aquarius near the star Eta. Diagram: Bob King, source: Stellarium

Itching to watch a meteor shower and don’t mind getting up at an early hour? Good because this should be a great year for the annual Eta Aquarid (AY-tuh ah-QWAR-ids) shower which peaks on Thursday and Friday mornings May 5-6. While the shower is best viewed from tropical and southern latitudes, where a single observer might see between 25-40 meteors an hour, northern views won’t be too shabby. Expect to see between 10-15 per hour in the hours before dawn.

Most showers trace their parentage to a particular comet. The Perseids of August originate from dust strewn along the orbit of comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which drops by the inner solar system every 133 years after “wintering” for decades just beyond the orbit of Pluto.

Photo of Haley's Comet crossing the Milky Way, taken by the Kuiper Airborne Observatory in New Zealand on April 8th/9th, 1986. Credit: NASA — Halley’s Comet crossing the Milky Way, taken by the Kuiper Airborne Observatory in New Zealand on April 8-9, 1986. Credit: NASA

The upcoming Eta Aquarids have the best known and arguably most famous parent of all: Halley’s Comet. Twice each year, Earth’s orbital path intersects dust and minute rock particles strewn by Halley during its cyclic 76-year journey from just beyond Uranus to within the orbit of Venus.

Our first pass through Halley’s remains happens this week, the second in late October during the Orionid meteor shower. Like bugs hitting a windshield, the grains meet their demise when they smash into the atmosphere at 147,000 mph (237,000 km/hr) and fire up for a brief moment as meteors. Most comet grains are only crumb-sized and don’t have a chance of reaching the ground as meteorites. To date, not a single meteorite has ever been positively associated with a particular shower.

A bright, earthgrazer Eta Aquarids streaks across Perseus May 6, 2013. Because the radiant is low for northern hemisphere observers, earthgrazers - long, bright meteors that come up from near the horizon and have long-lasting trails. Credit: Bob King — A bright, earthgrazing Eta Aquarid streaks across Perseus and through the aurora on May 6, 2013. Because the radiant is low for northern hemisphere observers, earthgrazers – long, bright meteors that come up from near the horizon and have long-lasting trails. Credit: Bob King

The farther south you live, the higher the shower radiant will appear in the sky and the more meteors you’ll spot. A low radiant means less sky where meteors might be seen. But it also means visits from “earthgrazers”. These are meteors that skim or graze the atmosphere at a shallow angle and take many seconds to cross the sky. Several years back, I saw a couple Eta Aquarid earthgrazers during a very active shower. One other plus this year — no moon to trouble the view, making for ideal conditions especially if you can observe from a dark sky.

From mid-northern latitudes the radiant or point in the sky from which the meteors will appear to originate is low in the southeast before dawn. At latitude 50° north the viewing window lasts about 1 1/2 hours before the light of dawn encroaches; at 40° north, it’s a little more than 2 hours. If you live in the southern U.S. you’ll have nearly 3 hours of viewing time with the radiant 35° high.

At some personal peril, I grabbed a photo of snow in the headlights while driving home in a recent storm. Meteors in a meteor shower appear to radiate from a point in the distance in identical fashion. Photo: Bob King — Meteors in a meteor shower appear to radiate from a point in the distance in identical fashion to the way snow or rain radiates from a point in front of your car when you’re driving. Credit: Bob King

Grab a reclining chair, face east and kick back for an hour or so between 3 and 4:30 a.m. An added bonus this spring season will be hearing the first birdsong as the sky brightens toward the end of your viewing session. And don’t forget the sights above: a spectacular Milky Way arching across the southern sky and the planets of Mars and Saturn paired up in the southwestern sky.

Meteor shower members can appear in any part of the sky, but if you trace their paths in reverse, they’ll all point back to the radiant. Other random meteors you might see are called sporadics and not related to the Eta Aquarids. Meteor showers take on the name of the constellation from which they originate.

Aquarius is home to at least two showers. This one’s called the Eta Aquarids because it emanates from near the star Eta Aquarii. An unrelated shower, the Delta Aquarids, is active in July and early August. Don’t sweat it if weather doesn’t cooperate the next couple mornings. The shower will be active throughout the weekend, too.

Happy viewing and clear skies!

February 11, 2016November 17, 2021 by Bob King

NASA Says Indian Event Was Not Meteorite

Pentax K-1000, 50mm lens, Kodak Ektar 100 Exposure ~ 8 seconds at Dusk, Capturing a Bright Fireball, breaking up with debri, Yellow Springs, Ohio. Photo credit: John Chumack

Last Saturday, Feb. 6th, a meteorite reportedly struck a bus driver on the campus of the Bharathidasan Engineering College in southern India. Three students were also injured and several windows were shattered in some kind of explosion. Online videos and stills show a small crater left by the impact. If true, this would be the first time in recorded history a person was struck and killed by a meteorite.

Meteorite or …?

Call me skeptical. Since the purported meteorite weighed about 50 grams — just under two ounces — it would be far too small to cause an explosion or significant impact crater five feet deep and two feet wide as depicted in both video and still photos. There were also no reports of rumbles, sonic booms or sightings of a fireball streaking across the sky, sights and sounds associated with material substantial enough to penetrate the atmosphere and plunge to the ground. Shattered windows would indicate an explosion similar to the one that occurred over Chelyabinsk, Russia in February 2013. The blast wave spawned when the Russian meteorite fractured into thousands of pieces miles overhead pulverized thousands of windows with flying glass caused numerous injuries.

According to a story that ran in The News Minute, a team led by the Indian Space Research Organization (IRSO) recovered an object 2 cm (3/4 inch) in width that weighed 50 grams and looked like a meteorite with “air bubbles on its rigid surface”. There’s also been chatter about meteor showers dropping meteorites to Earth, with various stories reporting that there no active meteor showers at the time of the driver’s death. For the record, not a single meteorite ever found has been linked to a shower. Dust and tiny bits of comets produce most shower meteors, which vaporize to fine soot in the atmosphere.

Now even NASA says that based on images posted online, the explosion is “land based” rather than a rock from space.

There have been close calls in the past most notably in Sylacauga, Alabama On November 30, 1954 at 2:46 p.m. an 8.5 lb rock crashed through the roof of a home not far from that town, hit a radio console, bounced off the floor and struck the hand and hip of 31-year-old Ann Hodges who was asleep on the couch at the time. She awoke in surprise and pain thinking that a space heater had blown up. But when she noticed the hole in the roof and a rock on the floor, Hodges figured the neighborhood kids had been up to no good.

Dr. Moody James shows where Ann Hodges was struck in the hip by an 8.5 lb meteorite that crashed through her roof (right). The photos appeared in the Dec. 13, 1954 issue of Life magazine. Photo by Jay Leviton, Time & Life Pictures, Getty Images

Fortunately her injuries weren’t serious. Ann became a sudden celebrity; her photo even appeared on the cover of Life magazine with a story titled “A Big Bruiser From The Sky”. In 1956 she donated the meteorite to the Alabama Museum of Natural History in Tuscaloosa, where you can still see it to this day. A second meteorite from the fall weighing 3.7 lbs. was picked up the following day by Julius K. McKinney in the middle of a dirt road. McKinney sold his fragment to the Smithsonian and used the money to purchase a small farm and used car.

Claims of people getting hit by meteorites have been on the increase in the past few years with the growth of the social media. Some stories have been deliberately made up and none have been verified. This would appear to be another tall tale if only based upon the improbabilities. In the meantime I’ve dug around and discovered another story that’s more probable and may indeed be the truth, though I have no way as of yet to independently verify it.

Police at the college say that two of the school’s gardeners were burning materials from the garden when the fire inadvertently set off sticks of dynamite that had been abandoned “amid the rocks” when the college was first built. The driver, by the name of Kamaraj and another driver, Sultan, were drinking water nearby when they were hit by the shrapnel and flying glass. Kamaraj began bleeding and was rushed to a hospital but died on the way. More HERE.

In the meantime, we only hope officials get to the bottom of the tragic death.

December 10, 2015December 12, 2015 by David Dickinson

The 2015 Geminids: Observing, History, Imaging, Prognostications and More

An early 2015 Geminid from the morning of December 9th. Image credit and copyright: Kevin Palmer

Author’s note: as of Thursday morning December 10^th, the Geminids are already active. Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR) has picked up a consistent stream of radio pings hailing from the constellation Gemini over the last few mornings, and reports of early Geminid activity seen by observers worldwide have been reported. If you’ve got clear skies this weekend over the next few mornings, don’t miss a sure-fire shower.

A grand finale meteor shower graces the skies of the Earth this weekend, as the December Geminid meteors reach their peak early Sunday morning into Monday. Continue reading “The 2015 Geminids: Observing, History, Imaging, Prognostications and More”

December 8, 2015December 22, 2015 by Bob King

Viewing Guide to the 2015 Geminid Meteor Shower

A brilliant Geminid flashes below Sirius and Orion over Mount Balang in China. Credit: NASA/Alvin Wu

2015 looks like a fantastic year for the Geminids. With the Moon just 3 days past new and setting at the end of evening twilight, conditions couldn’t be more ideal. Provided the weather cooperates! But even there we get a break. With a maximum of 120 meteors per hour, the shower is expected to peak around 18:00 UT (1 p.m. EST, 10 a.m. PST) December 14th, making for two nights of approximately equal activity: Sunday night Dec. 13-14 and Monday night Dec. 14-15. Continue reading “Viewing Guide to the 2015 Geminid Meteor Shower”

November 18, 2015December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

Hunting Unicorns: Is an Alpha Monocerotid Outburst Due in 2015?

What’s rarer than a unicorn? Perhaps, its spying a a elusive meteor outburst from the heart of one…

Ready for more meteor shower action? Thus far this season, we’ve covered the Orionids, Taurid fireballs, and the Leonid meteors…

Up for one more? Well, this week’s offering is a bit chancy, but we ‘may’ be in for a minor outburst from a usually quiescent shower. On any given year, the Alpha Monocerotid meteors wouldn’t rate a second look.

A confirmed 2014 Alpha Monocerotid. Image credit: The United Kingdom Meteor Observation Network (UKMON)

First, however, a caveat is in order. Meteor showers never read prognostications and often prove to be fickle, and wild card meteor storms doubly so.

Not to be confused with the straight up Monocerotids which peak in early December, the Alpha Monocerotids are moderately active from November 15th through the 25^th, with a soft peak on the 22^nd. And though the radiant derives its name from the brightest star in the rambling constellation of Monoceros the Unicorn, the radiant is actually located at its peak at right ascension 7 hours 46 minutes and declination +00 degrees 24 minutes, just across the border in the constellation Canis Minor.

The Alpha Monocerotids have a curious history. They first caught the keen eye of observers in 1925, when F.T. Bradley watching from rural Virginia noted 37 meteors over a 13 minute span. In the 20^th century, small outbursts seemed to ply the skies around November 22^nd on the fifth year of each decade, with brief outbursts seen in 1935 and 1985. NASA astronomer and SETI Institute research scientist Peter Jenniskens predicted a 1995 outburst, and as predicted, a brief 30 minute display greeted members of the Dutch Meteor Society based under dark skies in southern Spain. The shower had a brief 5-minute climax in 1995, with an extrapolated zenithal hourly rate of 420.

6AM local radiant. image credit — The location of the Alpha Monocerotid meteor shower radiant at 6AM local from about 30 degrees latitude north. Image credit: Stellarium

Prospects for the shower in 2015

As of this writing, a major outburst from the Alpha Monocerotids isn’t predicted for 2015… but you just never know. It’s always worth watching for an outburst on the night of November 21/22^nd, especially in years ending in five.

In 2015, the Moon phase for the night of Saturday/Sunday November 21^st/22^nd is waxing gibbous and about 79% illuminated and setting at around 1:00 AM local, putting it safely out of view.

The predicted peak for the 2015 Alpha Monocerotids is centered on 4:25 UT/11:25 PM EST as per the International Meteor Organization (IMO), favoring western European longitudes in a similar fashion as 1995 at dawn on Sunday, November 22^nd.

Thus far, the source comet for the Alpha Monocerotids remains a mystery, though a prime contender is Comet C/1943 W1 van Gent-Peltier-Daimaca. Discovered during the Second World War, this comet has an undefined long period orbit, and reached perihelion 0.87 AU from the Sun on January 12^th, 1944.

Jenniskens notes that orbital configurations of Jupiter and Saturn may play a role in the long term modification of meteor streams such as the Alpha Monocerotids. A fascinating discussion on predicting meteor outbursts and the evolution of meteor streams by Mr Jenniskens can be read here.

The stream seems to have a very brief burst of activity of less than an hour, reminiscent of the elusive January Quadrantids. The Alpha Monocerotid radiant sits highest in the sky at around 4 AM local, and the incoming speed of the meteors is a very respectable 65 kilometers a second, making for brief swift trails.

Meteor Watching and Reporting

But beyond just observing, many sky watchers choose to log what they see and report it. Meteor shower streams—especially obscure ones such as the Alpha Monocerotids—are often poorly understood, and observers provide a valuable service by counting and reporting the number of meteors seen over a particular period of time.

Imaging meteors is as simple as setting up a DSLR on a tripod for wide angle shots, and taking repeated exposures of the sky. We generally take a few test shots to get the ISO/f-stop mix just right for the current sky conditions, then set our intervalometer to take repeated 30-second exposures while we visually observe. Aim about 45 degrees away from the radiant to catch meteors in profile, and check the camera lens periodically for morning dew. We generally keep a hair dryer handy to combat condensation under moisture-laden Florida skies.

Maybe a vigil for an Alpha Monocerotid outburst is an exercise in hunting unicorns… but watching an outburst would be an unforgettable sight. Perhaps, the Alpha Monocerotid stream is on the wane in the 21^st century… or a new outburst is still in the wings, waiting to greet dawn residents of the Earth.

November 13, 2015December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

‘Explody’ Taurid Meteors Produce Persistent Trains

A bright Taurid meteor falls over Deadfall Basin, near the base of Mount Eddy in California. Credit and copyright: Brad Goldpaint.

“The landscape was just at the verge of trying to silently explode with vibrant colors of red, gold and oranges,” said photographer Brad Goldpaint as he described the autumn view during his hike to Deadfall Basin in California to set up his cameras to try and capture a few Taurid meteors.

But the landscape wasn’t the only thing about to explode.

Later that night Brad captured a few “exploding” meteors that produced what are called persistent trains: what remains of a meteor fireball in the upper atmosphere as winds twist and swirl the expanding debris.

Brad created a time-lapse video from the event and slowed down the footage to highlight the trains.

Persistent trains have been difficult to study because they are rather elusive. But lately, with the widespread availability of ultra-fast lenses and highly sensitive cameras, capturing these trains is becoming more common.

Phil Plait still has the best description out there of what happens when persistent trains are produced:

As a meteoroid (the actual solid chunk of material) blasts through the air, it ionizes the gases, stripping electrons from their parent atoms. As the electrons slowly recombine with the atoms, they emit light — this is how neon signs glow, as well as giant star-forming nebulae in space. The upper-level winds blowing that high (upwards of 100 km/60 miles) create the twisting, fantastic shapes in the train.

The consensus among our Universe Today Flickr pool photographers who posted images of the Taurids this year is that the 2015 Taurids weren’t entirely remarkable. Most astrophotgraphers reported they saw one or two per hour. Here are a few more Taurid meteor shower images from our photographer friends:

A bright Taurid fireball on November 9, 2015. Credit and copyright: Mark Sansom.

Two Taurid meteors from the November 2015 shower, on November 10, 2015. Credit and copyright: Alan Dyer.

A bright Taurid meteor is reflected in a lake in Illinois. Credit and copyright: Kevin Palmer.

November 11, 2015December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

MESSENGER Spies a Meteor Shower… on Mercury

Leonid meteor storms. Taurid meteor swarms. Earth is no stranger to meteor showers, that’s for sure. Now, it turns out that the planet Mercury may experience periodic meteor showers as well.

The news of extraterrestrial meteor showers on Mercury came out of the annual Meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society currently underway this week in National Harbor, Maryland. The study was carried out by Rosemary Killen of NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center, working with Matthew Burger of Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland and Apostolos Christou from the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland. The study looked at data from the MErcury Surface Space Environment Geochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft, which orbited Mercury until late April of this year. Astronomers published the results in the September 28^th issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

Micrometeoroid debris litters the ecliptic plane, the result of millions of years of passages of comets through the inner solar system. You can see evidence of this in the band of the zodiacal light visible at dawn or dusk from a dark sky site, and the elusive counter-glow of the gegenschein.

The orbit of comet 2P Encke. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Researchers have tagged meteoroid impacts as a previous source of the tenuous exosphere tails exhibited by otherwise airless worlds such as Mercury. The impacts kick up a detectable wind of calcium particles as Mercury plows through the zodiacal cloud of debris.

“We already knew that impacts were important in producing exospheres,” says Killen in a recent NASA Goddard press release. “What we did not know was the relative importance of comet streams over zodiacal dust.”

This calcium peak, however, posed a mystery to researchers. Namely, the peak was occurring just after perihelion—Mercury orbits the Sun once every 88 Earth days, and travels from 0.31 AU from the Sun at perihelion to 0.47 AU at aphelion—versus an expected calcium peak predicted by researchers just before perihelion.

A key suspect in the calcium meteor spike dilemma came in the way of periodic Comet 2P Encke. Orbiting the Sun every 3.3 years—the shortest orbit of any known periodic comet—2P Encke has made many passages through the inner solar system, more than enough to lay down a dense and stable meteoroid debris stream over the millennia.

With an orbit ranging from a perihelion at 0.3 AU interior to Mercury’s to 4 AU, debris from Encke visits Earth as well in the form of the November Taurid Fireballs currently gracing the night skies of the Earth.

The Encke connection still presented a problem: the cometary stream is closest to the orbit of Mercury about a week later than the observed calcium peak. It was as if the stream had drifted over time…

Enter the Poynting-Robertson effect. This is a drag created by solar radiation pressure over time. The push on cometary dust grains thanks to the Poynting-Robertson effect is tiny, but it does add up over time, modifying and moving meteor streams. We see this happening in our own local meteor stream environment, as once great showers such as the late 19^th century Andromedids fade into obscurity. The gravitational influence of the planets also plays a role in the evolution of meteor shower streams as well.

Researchers in the study re-ran the model, using MESSENGER data and accounting for the Poynting-Robertson effect. They found the peak of the calcium emissions seen today are consistent with millimeter-sized grains ejected from Comet Encke about 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. That grain size and distribution is important, as bigger, more massive grains result in a smaller drag force.

A 2015 Taurid meteor. Image credit: Kevin Palmer

This finding shows the role and mechanism that cometary debris plays in exosphere production on worlds like Mercury.

“Finding that we can move the location of stream to match MESSENGER’s observations is gratifying, but the fact that the shift agrees with what we know about Encke and its stream from independent source makes us confident that the cause-and-effect relationship is real, says Christou in this week’s NASA Goddard press release.

Launched in 2004, MESSENGER arrived at Mercury in March 2011 and orbited the world for over four years, the first spacecraft to do so. MESSENGER mapped the entire surface of Mercury for the first time, and became the first human-made artifact to impact Mercury on April 30^th, 2015.

The joint JAXA/ESA mission BepiColombo is the next Mercury mission in the pipeline, set to leave Earth on 2017 for insertion into orbit around Mercury on 2024.

An interesting find on the innermost world, and a fascinating connection between Earth and Mercury via comet 2P Encke and the Taurid Fireballs.

November 10, 2015December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

From a Roar to a Purr: Prospects for the 2015 November Leonid Meteors

A November rain hails from the Sickle of the Lion.

Hot on the heels of the October Orionids and the Halloween fireballs of the Taurid meteors comes the Leonid meteor shower. On most years, the Leonids are a moderate shower, with hourly local rates reaching around 20. Once every 33 years, however, the Leonids are responsible for putting on one of the greatest astronomical shows ever witnessed, producing a grand storm with a zenithal hourly rate topping thousands per hour.

The orientation of the Earth and the relative positions of the Sun, Moon and the Leonid meteor radiant on November 17th at 4:00 UT. Image credit: Stellarium

Prospects for 2015

First, the bad news. 2015 isn’t forecast to be a ‘storm year’ for the Leonids, though that shouldn’t stop a vigilant observer from watching. The good news is, we’re just about midway betwixt the storm years of 1998-99 and 2031-32. The Leonids intensify once every 33 years, and if the increased activity seen in the late 1990s was any indication, we’d bet we’ll start seeing a pickup in rates from the Leonids in the late 2020’s or so. The good news for 2015, however, is that the peak for the Leonids occur on November 18^th at around 4:00 Universal Time (UT)/ (11:00 PM EST on November 17^th). This places the waxing crescent Moon out of the picture, just a day before reaching First Quarter phase. New Moon for November 2015 occurs on November 11^th at 17:47 UT/12:47 PM EST.

Fun fact: the August Perseids, November Leonids and the December Geminid meteor showers are spaced out on the calendar in such a way that, when the Moon phase is favorable for one shower on a particular year, it is nearly always favorable across all of them.

The Leonids are mildly active from November 6^th through November 30^th, and though the above prediction for activity in 2015 favors European longitudes at dawn, some predictions have the peak arriving up to seven hours early this year.

The Leonids are the dusty remnants laid down by periodic comet 55P Tempel-Tuttle on its 33-year path through the inner solar system. The Leonids are fast-movers, hitting the Earth nearly head-on in the dawn. You can see this in the relative position of the radiant, which rises in mid-November around 11PM local, and reaches the zenith around 6AM local time.

A late season Leonid meteor from 2014. Image credit: The UK Monitoring network (UKMON)

Often bluish in color, the Leonids hit the Earth’s atmosphere at over 70 km/sec… almost the fastest theoretical speed possible. For best results, watch for Leonids to spike in activity close to local dawn.

A 1799 woodcut depicting the Leonids at sea. Image credit: Public Domain

The Leonids have a storied history, going back 902 AD report from Arabic annals of the ‘Year of Stars.’ The Great Meteor Storm of 1833 dazzled (and terrified) residents of the eastern seaboard of the United States, and the spectacle not only inspired astronomer Denison Olmsted to pioneer studies into the fledgling field of meteor shower science, but has been attributed to adding fervor to many of the religious revivalist movements that sprang up in the 1830s in the United States as well.

The last outburst from the Leonids that reached such an apocalyptic scale was in 1966, when observers across the southwestern United States reported hourly rates approaching an amazing ZHR=144,000. Witnesses that remember this spectacle say it produced an illusion reminiscent of the Star Trek ‘warp speed’ effect, as Earth rammed headlong into the dense Leonid meteor stream.

Our own personal encounter with a Leonid meteor storm in 1998 from the dark desert skies of Kuwait wasn’t quite that intense, but thrilling to see nonetheless. Rates neared one every few seconds towards sunrise, with several fireballs punctuating the action, lighting up the desert floor. Here, as US coalition forces were on the verge of unleashing what would become Operation: Desert Fox over Iraq, the Universe was putting on a fireworks show of its own.

The Leonid meteor storms are the stuff of astronomical legend, a once in a lifetime event. Ever since we witnessed just what the Leonids are capable of, we never miss this annual shower, as we remember one night back in 1998, and look forward to the storms of 2032.

Here’s what the Leonids have been doing on previous recent years:

ZHR=15 +/-4 (2014)

Mostly washed out by the near-Full Moon (2013)

ZHR=47 +/-11 (2012)

ZHR=22 +/-3 (2011)

ZHR=32+/-4 (2010)

Report those Leonid sightings to the International Meteor Organization, and also be sure to Tweet em to #Meteorwatch
Got an image of a Leonid meteor? Send ‘em in to Universe Today at our Flickr Forum… we just might feature it in an after-action round up!

October 29, 2015December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

A Halloween Season ‘Taurid Meteor Swarm’ on Tap for 2015?

Asteroid 2015 TB145 isn’t the only cosmic visitor paying our planet a trick-or-treat visit over the coming week. With any luck, the Northern Taurid meteor shower may put on a fine once a decade show heading into early November.

About once a decade, the Northern Taurid meteor stream puts on a good showing. Along with its related shower the Southern Taurids, both are active though late October into early November.

The motion of the radiant of the Northern Taurid meteors from mid-October through mid-November. Image credit: Stellarium — The motion of the radiant of the Northern Taurid meteors from mid-October through mid-November. The shower typically peaks around November 12th annually. Image credit: Stellarium

Specifics for 2015

This year sees the Moon reaching Full on Tuesday October 27^th, just a few days before Halloween. The Taurid fireballs, however, have a few things going for them that most other showers don’t. First is implied in the name: the Northern Taurids, though typically exhibiting a low zenithal hourly rate of around 5 to 10, are, well, fireballs, and thus the light-polluting Moon won’t pose much of a problem. Secondly, the Taurid meteor stream is approaching the Earth almost directly from behind, meaning that unlike a majority of meteor showers, the Taurids are just as strong in the early evening as the post midnight early morning hours. As a matter of fact, we saw a brilliant Taurid just last night from light-polluted West Palm Beach in Florida, just opposite to the Full Moon and a partially cloudy sky.

A 2014 Taurid. Image credit and copyright: Brian who is called Brian

In stark contrast to the swift-moving Orionids from earlier this month, expect the Taurid fireballs to trace a brilliant and leisurely slow path across the night sky, moving at a stately 28 kilometre per second (we say stately, as the October Orionids smash into our atmosphere at over twice that speed!)

Ever since the 2005 event, the Northern Taurids seemed to have earned the name as “The Halloween Fireballs” in the meme factory that is the internet. It’s certainly fitting that Halloween should have its very own pseudo-apocalyptic shower. The last good return for the Northern Taurids was 2005-2008, and 2015 may see an upswing in activity as well.

Obviously, something interesting has to be occurring on Comet 2P Encke—the source of the two Taurid meteor streams—to shed the pea-sized versus dust-sized material seen in the Southern and Northern Taurids. With the shortest orbital period 3.3 years of all periodic comets known, the Taurid meteor stream—like Encke itself—follows a shallow path nearly parallel to the ecliptic plane.

Discovered in 1822 by astronomer Johann Encke, Comet 2P Encke has been observed through many perihelion passages over the last few centuries, and passes close to Earth once 33 years, as it last did in 2013.

What constitutes a ‘meteor swarm?’ As with many terms in meteoritics, no hard-and-fast definition of a true ‘meteor swarm’ exists. A meteor storm is generally quoted as having a zenithal hourly rate greater than 1000. Expect activity to be broad over the next few weeks, and the Taurid fireballs always have the capacity to produce the kind of brilliant events captured by security cams and dashboard video cameras that go viral across ye ole Internet.

Watching for fireballs is a thrilling pursuit. These may often leave persistent glowing meteor trails in their wake. We caught the 1998 Leonids from the dark sky deserts of Kuwait, and can attest to the persistence of glowing fireball trails from this intense storm, sometimes for minutes. Again, the 2015 Taurids aren’t expected to reach that level of intensity, though the ratio of fireballs to faint meteors will be enhanced.

The path of the stream isn’t fully understood, and that is where volunteer observations can come in handy. The International Meteor Organization is always looking for reports from skilled observers, as is the American Meteor Society (AMS).

There’s even been evidence for a recorded meteorite strike related to the northern Taurid fireballs back in 2015 on the dark limb of the Moon as well, a rare event indeed.

After a slow summer, Fall meteor shower activity is definitely heating up. And though 2015 is an off year for the November Leonids, we’re now almost midway between the 1998-99 outbursts, and the possibility of another grand meteor storm in the early 2030s. And another obscure wildcard shower known as the Alpha Monocerotids may put on a surprise showing in November 2015 as well…

Bright Meteor 4th November 2013 from Richard Fleet on Vimeo.

More to come on that. Keep watching the skies, and don’t forget to tweet those Northern Taurid fireball sightings and images to #Meteorwatch!

-Got an image of a Northern Taurid fireball? Send ‘em in to Universe Today for our Flickr forum… we may just feature your pic in an after action round up!

August 12, 2015December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Gallery: 2015 Perseids Are Putting on a Show

Perseid Meteor Shower over the East Point Light House in New Jersey, USA. Credit and copyright: Jeff Berkes.

Have you been looking up the past few nights, trying to see the Perseid Meteor Shower? Many of our readers have been turning their eyes — and cameras — to the skies, with spectacular results. This year’s Perseids were predicted to be one of the best ever, since there has been little to no moonlight to upstage the shower. As you can see from the images here, many astrophotographers were able to capture fast and bright meteors, and even some that left persistent trains.

Remember, tonight (Wednesday, August 12, 2015) is projected to be the peak, so if you’ve got clear skies, take advantage of this opportunity to see a great meteor shower. You can find out how and when to see them in our previous detailed articles by our in-house observing experts David Dickinson and Bob King.

And enjoy the view from our readers in this gallery of 2015 Perseids:

A Perseid Meteor, the Milky Way and the photographer on August 11, 2015 near Bamburgh, Northumberland, England. Credit and copyright: Peter Greig. — A Perseid Meteor, the Milky Way and the photographer on August 11, 2015 near Bamburgh, Northumberland, England. Credit and copyright:
Peter Greig.

An 'exploding' Perseid meteor as seen on August 11, 2015. Credit and copyright: Chris Lyons. — An ‘exploding’ Perseid meteor as seen on August 11, 2015. Credit and copyright: Chris Lyons.

Bright Perseid and Perseus. Credit and copyright: Chris Lyons.

A green Perseid meteor, along with 2 satellites show up in this image taken on August 11, 2015. Credit and copyright: eos-001 on Flickr.

Perseid meteor from early morning, August 12, 2015 in Weatherly, Pennsylvania. Taken with a Canon 6D and Samyang 14mm lens, 40 second exposure at ISO 3200, unguided. Credit and copyright: Tom Wildoner.

Perseid Meteor near Cassiopeia along with the Andromeda Galaxy, as seen from France on August 10, 2015. Credit and copyright: VegaStar Carpentier/ VegaStar Carpentier Photography.

A Perseid Meteor as seen on August 8, 2015, taken from Oxfordshire with a Canon 1100D + 18-55mm lens, ISO-1600 for 30 seconds. Credit and copyright: Mary Spicer.

Prolific night sky photographer John Chumack near Dayton, Ohio put together this video of 81 Perseid meteors he captured on August 12, 2015 with his Automated low light -Meteor Video Camera Network:

If you are clouded out, you can still enjoy the shower. NASA TV will be tracking the Perseids live on Wednesday, August 12 starting at 10PM EDT/02:00 UT: