A stunning meteor shower will streak through the the sky this evening, and may remain visible until the early morning hours on Tuesday.
The event is known as the Draconid meteor shower, which occurs every year in October. It gets its name from the constellation Draco the Dragon, because the meteors appear to be coming from its direction.
It is unique in that they are most visible in the hours just after nightfall, which means you won’t have to stay up late to witness this dazzling spectacle.
These meteors will be within view of our planet from October 6 through 10, but experts predict that the shower will peak at 11pm ET (4am UK) on Monday, October 7.
The elusive Draconid meteor shower will streak through the the sky this evening, and may remain visible until the early morning hours on Tuesday
That means the best time to watch will be tonight. Not only because the shower will peak, but because the waxing crescent moon will set a few hours after sunset, so the shooting stars will be extra bright against a moonless sky.
You don’t have to locate a specific point in the night sky to see the Draconids.
They will be flying every which way – so you’ll just want to make sure you have as wide a view as possible.
Sitting in a reclining lawn chair or lying on your back in an area free of buildings, trees or other objects that could obstruct your view will offer the best chance of seeing the shower.
If you live in an urban area, you may want to choose a more rural viewing location to eliminate the dimming effects of light pollution.
The Draconid meteor shower is relatively sparse, producing roughly 10 visible meteors per hour.
These meteors move slower than others, allowing them to remain visible for one to two seconds as they fly by our planet.
The Draconid shower gets its name from the constellation Draco the Dragon.
But these meteors are also sometimes called the Giacobinids after the Michel Giacobini, the French astronomer who discovered them in 1900.
The meteors originate from the comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, a small one-mile-wide comet that orbits the sun about every six and a half years.
The Draconid shower gets its name because they appear to be coming from the direction of the constellation Draco the Dragon
As this comet circles the sun, it ejects a trail of rock, dust and ice into space. This debris trail is what creates the Draconids.
Each year in October when Earth nears the comet’s debris trail, the Draconids become visible in the night sky – creating a meteor shower.
While the Draconid shower is generally considered ‘sparse,’ it can also be unpredictable. In some years, it has surprised stargazers with hundreds or even thousands of shooting stars per hour.
That’s because the comet’s debris is not scattered uniformly around its orbit – much of it is actually concentrated directly around the comet.
This means that comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner can occasionally produce a ‘meteor storm’ when it approaches our planet, unleashing far more meteors than usual.
This happened in 1933 and 1946, with several thousand meteors an hour, according to EarthSky.
The Draconids also showed out in higher than average numbers in 1985, 1998 and 2018, but these were not meteor storms.
In 2011, observers in Europe saw over 600 meteors per hour during this shower.
While it’s unlikely that we could see a storm of Draconids this week, there’s still a chance.
The last perihelion – or closest approach to the sun – of comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner was on September 10, 2018. That night, the comet came closer to Earth than it had in 72 years, resulting in a meteor outburst that produced 100 shooting stars per hour.
The comet’s next perihelon will occur about six months from now on March 29, 2025, which means that it is relatively close to Earth right now – offering a slight chance to see a greater-than-average number of shooting stars this week.
But as long as its a clear night where you are, you should be able to see at least several shooting stars as the Draconids make their annual trip past our planet.
