Meteor Showers Archives

April 25, 2011December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

Lingering Lyrids…

Meteor FireBall Break-up Courtesy of John Chumack

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Although we couldn’t remind you just before the date of the Lyrid meteor shower peak, there’s no reason to believe the show is over just yet! If you’re an early riser, this just might be your chance to catch a lingering Lyrid…

Every year the Earth encounters the dusty remnants of the tail of Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1). It doesn’t occur on a very specific date, but we do know it happens in late April. While the peak time is dawn on April 23, it’s not uncommon to see between 5-20 meteors per hour through the 26th.

Why such a widely varied date and diversified fall rate? The answer is… thanks to Jupiter’s massive gravity, we never know exactly when we might encounter a “clump” of comet debris. The majority of the time, the spawn of Comet Thatcher is no bigger than a grain of sand, traveling through our atmosphere at 49 km/s (110,000 mph). Incredibly enough, these fast moving particles can light up as brightly as 2nd magnitude – easily seen from moderately light polluted skies. Some have even been known to appear as fireballs and leave smoke-like trails that linger in the sky for several minutes!

For the past 2600 years, mankind has been observing the Lyrids – and you can, too. Since their radiant is near the bright star, Vega, your best time to observe is in the hours just before dawn. For many observers, the constellation of Lyra will be high to the east around 4:30 a.m. local time and nearly overhead just before dawn. Even southern hemisphere observers with an unobstructed northern horizon can enjoy the show, too. While there will be some Moon to contend with, placing it behind an obstruction like the corner of a building or a tree will help reduce the glare.

Clouded out or decided to sleep until it was light? Don’t forget your lessons on how to “listen” with your radio! According to NASA, “This year many amateur radio operators tuned into the Lyrids using a technique called radio forward scattering. When fast-moving meteoroids strike Earth’s atmosphere they heat and ionize the air in their path. The luminous ionized trails are not only visually striking — they also reflect radio waves. During a major meteor shower, radio signals from TV stations, RADAR facilities, and AM/FM transmitters are constantly bouncing off short lived meteor trails. For those who know how to listen, it’s easy to hear the echoes.” Don’t remember how to listen? Then take the radio meteor listening tutorial courtesy of the North American Meteor Network.

Will you catch a lingering Lyrid? You never know until you try…

Many thanks to John Chumack of Galactic Images and to NASA for the illustrations.

April 5, 2011December 24, 2015 by VirtualAstro

April’s Shooting Stars

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April showers? Yes! The 16th to the 26th this month brings us the April Lyrid Meteor Shower, with the peak occurring on April 22nd.

The meteors in this shower tend to be bright and leave persistent trains as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere. In recent years the shower has averaged 10 to 20 meteors per hour.

You may think that this sounds like a fairly mediocre shower and not worth bothering with, but it has been known for the Lyrids to surge and rates rise rapidly to over 100 per hour! This is what makes this shower so interesting and difficult to predict. Will it be a biggy this year or not?

Lyrid meteors radiate from a point (radiant) in the constellation of Lyra and this is where this shower gets its name. The best time to look for Lyrid meteors will late in the evening on April 22nd after 10 pm as the constellation of Lyra rises up from the northeast horizon.

This will give you 2 or 3 hours of meteor watching before the waning gibbous moon rises and starts to wash out the sky. But still, it’s well worth staying up to see as many bright meteors as possible.

February 26, 2011December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

Delta Leonid Meteors May Show On February 26

If you like keeping track of somewhat obscure meteor showers, tonight will be one of your best opportunities to spot the Delta Leonids. What’s the history of these meteors and when and where do you look? Let’s go outside and find out…

The Delta Leonids aren’t ancient and first came to attention during the early 20th century when W. F. Denning first made record of them in 1911. They were described as slow, with trains – but 16 independent observers report one of them as being at least six times as bright as the planet Venus. At the time, the fall rate was an average of 7 per hour.

Studies continued in 1924 and 1930 as scientists endeavored to pinpoint a radiant and an orbital stream. The results were rather inconclusive and the validity of the stream left to speculation. Are they Delta Leonids? Or the precursors of the Beta stream? From 1961 to 1965 a radio echo survey was employed and the results showed Earth passing through the stream between February 9th to March 12th. After several years of observation, the Western Australia Meteor Section has provided the most positive conculsions to date. While the stream cannot be attributed to any particular comet orbit, it does exist and peaks on (or about) February 26th.

If you’re out and about tonight, keep watch around the constellation of Leo… it will be relatively high in the sky around 10-11:00 pm local time. You’ll find its signature “backwards question mark” asterism along the ecliptic plane – the imaginary path the Sun and Moon take across the sky. With a typical magnitude of 2.8, these slow moving travellers will stand out against a fainter backdrop of stars. However, don’t expect to see a huge amount of activity, because the fall rate only averages about 5 per hour.

So why bother? It won’t hurt to keep an eye on the sky if you’re out walking your dog, or perhaps enjoying social activities which take you out to your car. The Delta Leonids are a temporary meteor stream and won’t be around forever. Catch ’em while you can!

Meteor Photo Credit: Yukihiro Kida/NASA Science

January 3, 2011December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

2011 Quadrantid Meteor Shower… Tonight’s the Night!

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In just a few hours the peak of the first meteor shower of 2011 will begin – the Quadrantids. Where did these mysterious meteors begin their life and how can you observe one yourself? Then step inside…

Beginning each New Year and lasting for nearly a week, the Quadrantid Meteor Shower sparkles across the night sky for nearly all viewers around the world. Its radiant belongs to an extinct constellation once known as Quadran Muralis, but any meteors will seem to come from the general direction of bright Arcturus and Bootes. This is a very narrow stream, which may have once belonged to a portion of the Aquarids, but recent scientific data points to a what may have been a cosmic collision. According the most recent data, the Quandrantid meteors may have been formed about five centuries ago when a near-Earth asteroid named 2003 EH1 and a comet smashed into one another. Historic records from ancient China put comet C/1490 Y1 in the path of probability.

As Jupiter‘s gravity continues to perturb the stream, another 400 years may mean this shower will become as extinct as the constellation for which it was once known, but we aren’t out of the running just yet. “Peaking in the wee morning hours of Tuesday, Jan. 4, the Quads have a maximum rate of about 100 per hour (varies between 60 and 200),” says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. “What makes this year so special is that the Moon is New on the night of the peak, so there will be no interference from moonlight.”

As exciting as it may seem, there are a few problems associated with observing the Quadrantid meteor shower. The first is the weather, because this northern hemisphere show occurs during a notoriously cold season making observations uncomfortable at best. The second is the brevity of the activity itself. Because Earth intersects the debris orbit of 2003 EH1 at a perpendicular angle, we zip right through the trail. That’s why the shower activity is so fast and slightly unpredictable. A third consideration is the high probability of cloud cover – but take heart… NASA has you covered!

“Got clouds? No problem.” says SpaceWeather. “You can stay inside and listen to the Quadrantids. Tune into SpaceWeather Radio for a live audio stream from the Air Force Space Surveillance Radar. When a Quadrantid passes over the facility, you will hear a “ping” caused by the radar’s powerful transmitter echoing from the meteor’s ion trail. During the shower’s peak, the soundtrack is guaranteed to entertain.

So where and when to look? “You can start watching after 2:30am in the North to North East look between the handle of the Big Dipper -Ursa Major and the Constellation of Bootes or the Kite shaped constellation, this is the radiant location as the Meteors will appear to radiate from this general area.” says professional astrophotographer, John Chumack. “Or after 2:30am simply look between the North Star and bright star Arcturus in the East. The Quadrantid Meteors will appear to be coming from this general area of the sky. There is no moon present during this year’s shower, so you can watch all night if you like without moonlight interfering, but the best time will be after 2:30am. As the night goes on the Big Dipper, Bootes and Arcturus climb higher into the sky, so keep watching because the number of meteors usually picks up after 2:30am and gets better through 6:00am. as Earth rotates into the stream. Meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, so look in all directions of the sky as the Quadrantid radiant reaches straight over head. The Quadrantid Meteors are rather fast movers. They enter the atmosphere at about 90,000 to 120,000mph, and can have some impressive long trails.”

Will the Quadrantid Meteor Shower live up to its expectations? No one knows for sure… But we’ll be watching!

Many thanks to John Chumack of Galactic Images for his inspiring photo and to NASA for the locator chart. We thank you so much!

December 9, 2010April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Get Ready for the Geminids — In the Sky and Online!

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One of the best night sky events of the year is on tap: The Geminid Meteor shower. According to the Royal Astronomical Society, the evening of December 13 and the morning of December 14, skywatchers across the northern hemisphere could see up to 100 “shooting stars” or meteors each hour. This number is what will be seen at the peak of activity, but if conditions are clear you can definitely take the time to observe any time between Sunday night, Dec. 12 to Wednesday morning, Dec. 15.

You can also participate and share in the event on Twitter, with the #Meteorwatch crew.

Of course, meteors are the result of small particles entering the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed, burning up and super-heating the air around them, which shines as a characteristic short-lived streak of light. In this case the debris is associated with the asteroidal object 3200 Phaethon, which many astronomers believe to be an extinct comet.

The meteors appear to originate from a ‘radiant’ in the constellation of Gemini, and so the name Geminid.

For US skywatchers, Sky & Telescope predicts that under a clear, dark sky, one or two shooting stars per
minute will likely be seen from about 11 p.m. local time Monday until dawn Tuesday morning. If you live under the artificial skyglow of light pollution the numbers will be less, but the brightest meteors will still shine through.

For European, and particularly British observers, the RAS says by 0200 GMT on December 14, the radiant will be almost overhead in the UK, making it the best time to see the Geminids. By that time the first quarter Moon will have set so the prospects for a good view of the shower are excellent.

Meteors in the Geminid shower are less well known, probably because the weather in December is less reliable. But those who brave the cold can be rewarded with a fine view. In comparison with other showers, Geminid meteors travel fairly slowly, at around 35 km (22 miles) per second, are bright and have a yellowish hue, making them distinct and easy to spot.

To watch for meteors, all you need are your eyes. Find a dark spot with an open view of the sky and no glary lights nearby. Bundle up as warmly. “Go out late in the evening, lie back, and gaze up into the stars,” says Sky & Telescope senior editor Alan MacRobert. “Relax, be patient, and let your eyes
adapt to the dark. The best direction to watch is wherever your sky is darkest, probably straight up.”

As with most astronomical events, the best place to see meteors is at dark sites away from the light pollution of towns and cities. You can also check with astronomy clubs or science museums if they are hosting any viewing events.

The Geminids will also feature in a Twitter event, called Meteorwatch, where observers can post their text, images and videos to share them with other observers (and also for those having less favorable locations. Anyone with Internet access can join in by following @virtualastro and the #meteorwatch hashtag on Twitter.

Sources: RAS, Sky & Telescope,

November 16, 2010December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

The Lion Tamer – Leonid Meteor Shower 2010

Are you ready to walk into the lion’s cage? Then break out your favorite skywatching gear because the 2010 Leonid meteor shower is underway…

In the pre-dawn hours on the mornings of November 17 and November 18, the offspring of Comet Temple/Tuttle will be flashing through our atmosphere and just taunting you to test your meteor watching skills against bright skies. Although the phat Moon will greatly interfere with fainter meteor trails, don’t let that stop you from enjoying your monring coffee with the sparkling “cubs” that will be shooting out from the constellation of Leo.

Where? For all observers the constellation of Leo is along the ecliptic plane and will be near its peak height during best viewing times. When? Because of the Moon, just a couple of hours before local dawn is the best time to watch. Why? Read on!

Although it has been a couple of years since Temple/Tuttle was at perihelion, don’t forget that meteor showers are wonderfully unpredictable and the Leonids are sure to please with fall rate of around 20 (average) per hour. Who knows what surprises it may bring! Each time the comet swings around our Sun it loses some of its material in the debris trail. Of course, we all know that is the source of a meteor shower, but what we don’t know is just how much debris was shed and where it may lay.

As our Earth passes through the dusty matter, it may encounter a place where the comet let loose with a large amount of its payload – or it may pass through an area where the “comet stuff” is thin. We might even pass through an area which produces an exciting “meteor storm” like the Leonids produced in 1883! For those in the know, the Leonid meteor shower also made a rather incredible appearance in 1866 and 1867 – dumping up to 1000 (not a typo, folks) shooting stars recorded even with a Moon present! It erupted again in 1966 and in 1998 and produced 3000 (yep. 3000!) video recorded meteors during the years of 2001 and 2002. But remember, human eyes may only be able to detect just a few…

And I ain’t lion!

Photo Courtesy of Stardate.org, Texas University

November 3, 2010December 24, 2015 by Jon Voisey

Hartley 2 Spawns Meteor Shower

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The comet of the year for 2010 seems to be Hartley 2. Although this comet is receding from Earth now (its closest approach was in the latter half of October) and growing fainter, it seems to have left us with one last hurrah: The spawning a brief meteor shower.

Although other comets, such as 2009 R1 (McNaught) and 2P/Encke have passed earlier this year, none has presented an especially tempting target for amateur astronomers (both McNaught and Encke were too close to the Sun during perihelion to be easily observed). Additionally, Hartley is the target of a flyby of the Deep Impact probe bringing it further attention.

Meanwhile, observationally, the comet has been somewhat difficult to observe. I went out on October 17th to hunt for it with a 4″ telescope, but despite my best efforts, couldn’t find it. Although the comet was predicted to reach 5th magnitude, the growing nucleus has apparently become so diffuse, reaching over 1° in the sky, that it’s hard to spot. Undeterred, I attempted again this past weekend with my 8″ SCT. Again, my attempts were frustrated. Even a 15 second exposure with my camera barely brought out more than a smudge.

Yet that night we observed several bright meteors radiating from near Cassiopeia which is where Hartley had been a few weeks prior. We checked to ensure there weren’t any other annual meteor showers from that region. Sure enough, there weren’t, and we wondered if there might be a connection between Hartley’s passing and the meteors we witnessed.

Sure enough, just such a shower was a predicted possibility. Whether or not the shower would occur would depend on just how much dust Hartley had given off in the past and how diffuse the cloud had grown (on this pass and others) since its closest approach to Earth was still 12 million km. Although the meteors my friends and I witnessed were notable (around 2nd to 3rd magnitude) they came from the wrong direction. Meteors spawning from Hartley should have a radiant in Cygnus, the swan. But while ours may not have caught these “Hartley-ids”, others have been witnessing a far grander show in the past few nights that seem to come from the right direction.

In Seascape California, Helga Cabral caught a bright fireball. “I saw a bright white ball and tail, arcing towards the ocean. It was quite beautiful and it looked like it was headed out to sea and so picture perfect it could have been a movie!” A similar fireball was reported the same night near Boston, Massachusetts by Teresa Witham. The predicted peak of this shower occurs tonight so if you have a chance and clear skies, go out and look. As with most showers, there may be some stragglers just before and after so you may be able to catch some for the next few nights if conditions tonight aren’t favorable.

Meteors from Hartley 2 will have a relatively low velocity upon entering our atmosphere since the comet is traveling roughly in the same direction. As such, the expected velocity as it hits our planet is a mere 7 miles a second. The result of this is that they will likely travel slowly across the sky, taking perhaps as much as a few seconds. In contrast, the Leonid showers coming later this month have a relative velocity of 45 miles per second, which causes the meteors to streak across the entire sky in less than a second. The lower velocity for the Hartley-ids will also mean they won’t undergo as much frictional heating and will likely glow fainter shades of reds and yellows.

October 29, 2010December 24, 2015 by Jon Voisey

A Comet that Gives Twice?

A green and red Orionid meteor striking the sky below Milky Way and to the right of Venus. Zodiacal light is also seen at the image The trail appears slightly curved due to edge distortion in the lens. Taken by Mila Zinkova

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While historically, meteor showers were portents of ill omens, we know today that they are the remnants of ejecta from comets entering our atmosphere. Many showers have had their parent comets identified. But a new study is suggesting that two meteor showers, the December Monocerotids and the November Orionids, may share the same parent.

The possibility of a single comet providing multiple showers isn’t too difficult to imagine. Since comets orbit the Sun in elliptical paths there are two potential points the path can intersect Earth’s orbit: Once on the way in and once on the way out. The trouble is that comets don’t tend to orbit directly in the ecliptic plane (defined by the plane on which the Earth orbits the Sun). Thus, comets only puncture through this plane at points known as “nodes”. As a body passes from the upper half to the lower (where upper and lower are the halves defined by Earth’s north and south poles respectively) this point of intersection of the orbit with the ecliptic plane is known as the descending node. When it heads back up, this is the ascending node. If both nodes happen to lie near enough to Earth’s orbital path, the potential for two meteor showers exists. Another possibility is that orbital evolution cause the nodes to change their position and, over time, crossed Earth’s orbit at two different points.

In principle, identifying a parent comet for two showers is much simpler with the first method. In that instance, the comet still orbits in the same path (or near enough) to be conclusively identified as the progenitor. If such an instance were to arise due to orbital evolution, the case must be much more indirect since interactions with planets, even at fairly large distances, can induce large uncertainties in the orbital history.

The December Monocerotids have been associated with a comet known as C/1917 F1 Mellish. Unfortunately for the researchers, the current orbital characteristics of the comet did not feature nodes in Earth’s orbit and did not match the November Orionids. Thus, to establish a connection between the two meteor streams, the team of astronomers from Comenius University in Slovakia, looked at the characteristics of the showers. In order to track these characteristics, the team utilized a publicly available database of meteor recordings from SonotaCo which uses webcams to capture video of meteors and then compute the orbital characteristics of the debris. However, the two showers did share suspiciously similar distributions of sizes (and thus brightnesses) of meteors as well as the velocity and less so, but still notable, the eccentricity.

This led the team to suspect that the node had evolved across Earth’s orbit sweeping by once in the past to create the stream of debris that forms the November shower, and more recently, crossed our orbit to create the December shower. If this hypothesis were correct, the team expected to also find subtle differences hinting that the November shower was older. Sure enough, the November Orionids show a larger dispersion of velocities than that of the December shower.

In the future, the team plans to revise the orbital characteristics of the parent comet. While they were able to show that the precession of the orbit would allow for the situation described, it was only one of a number of possible solutions. Thus, refining the knowledge of the orbit, perhaps from archival photographic plates, would allow the team to better constrain the path and determine the orbital history sufficiently to reinforce or refute their scenario.

September 27, 2010December 24, 2015 by Jon Voisey

Does a “Rock Comet” Generate the Geminids?

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Many annual meteor showers have parent bodies identified. For example, the Perseids are ejecta from the comet, Swift-Tuttle and the Leonids from Tempel-Tuttle. Most known parent bodies are active comets, but one exception is the Geminid meteor shower that peaks in mid December. The parent for this shower is 3200 Phaethon. Observations of this object have shown it to be largely inactive pegging it as either a dead comet or an asteroid. But on June 20, 2009, shortly after perihelion, 3200 Phaethon brightened by over two magnitudes indicating this object may not be as dead as previously considered. A new paper considers the causes of the brightening and concludes that it could be a new mechanism leading to what the authors deem a “rock comet”.

David Jewett and Jing Li of UCLA, the authors of this new paper, consider several potential causes. Due to the size of 3200 Phaethon, they suggest that a collision is unlikely. One clue to the reason for the sudden change in brightness was a close link of a half of a day to a brightening in the solar corona. Given a typical solar wind speed and the distance of 3200 Phaethon at the time, this would put the Geminid parent just at the right range to be feeling the effects of the increase. However, the authors conclude that this cannot be directly responsible by imparting sufficient energy on the surface of the object to cause it to fluoresce due to an insufficient solar wind flux at that distance.

Instead, Jewett and Li consider more indirect explanations. Due to the temperature at 3200 Phaethon’s perihelion (0.14 AU) the presence of ices and other volatile gasses frozen solid and then blasting away as often happens in comets was ruled out as they would have been depleted on earlier orbits. However, the blow from the increased solar wind may have been sufficient to blow off loosely bound dust particles. While this is plausible, the authors note that the amount of mass lost if this were the case would be a paltry 2.5 x 10⁸ kg. While it’s possible that this may have been the cause of this single brightening, this amount of mass loss to the overall stream of particles responsible for the Geminid shower would be insufficient to sustain the stream and similar losses would have to occur ~10 times per orbit of the body. Since this has not been observed, it is unlikely that this event was tied to the production of the meteors. Additionally, it is somewhat unlikely that it could even be the event for this sole case since repeated perihelions would slowly deplete the reservoir of available dust until the body was left with only a bare surface. Unlike active comets which continually free dust to be ejected through sublimation of ice, 3200 Phaethon has no such process. Or does it?

The novel proposition is that this object may have an unusual mechanism by which to continually generate and liberate dust particles of the size of the Geminids. The authors propose that the heating at perihelion causes portions of the rock to decompose. This process is greatly enhanced if the rock has water molecules bonded to it and lab experiments have shown that this can lead to violent fracturing. Such processes, if present, could easily lead to the production of new dust particles that would be liberated during close approach to the sun. This would make this object a “rock comet” in which the properties of a comet’s dust ejection via gasses would be carried out by rocks.

To confirm this hypothesis, future observations would be needed to search for subsequent brightening at perihelion. Similarly, it should be expected that such a process may make a faint cometary tail with only a dust component that may be visible as well, although the lack of any such detection so far, despite studies looking for cometary tails, casts some doubt on this process.

August 12, 2010December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Tonight the Planets and Perseids Put on a Show For Free

Celestial Navigation — Looking northeast around midnight on August 12th-13th. The red dot is the Perseid radiant. Although Perseid meteors can appear in any part of the sky, all of their tails will point back to the radiant. Credit: NASA

Just a reminder: It’s time to head up on the roof, to the backyard, the pasture, the mountaintop — wherever you have to go to get away from city lights and watch the Perseid meteor shower. But this year, there’s the added show of a planetary conjuction right at sunset. Venus, Saturn, Mars, tiny Mercury and the crescent Moon pop out of the western twilight in tight conjunction. But then stay tuned to the sky for the Perseids. If you haven’t been out to see them yet, Thursday, August 12 and Friday August 13 should be the peak, and already some locations have been reporting 70-80 meteors an hour. No telescope is required to enjoy these two naked-eye events. See below for a sky map and tips on how to share your experience.

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Want to share the event via Twitter? Follow the hashtag #Meteorwatch and see the Meteorwatch website for all you need to know about watching the Perseids.

Meteorwatch even has a map of incoming meteors being reported on Twitter. Very cool!

There will also be live coverage on AstronomyFM

If you would like to contribute to science, the British Astronomical Society has a report form where you can submit how many meteors you are seeing.

The International Meteor Organization also has an online report form.

And Oana Sandu from the BAA has a list of tips for watching the meteor shower.

On Thursday, Aug. 12, from 3-4 p.m. EDT, astronomer Bill Cooke from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center will answer questions in a live chat about the Perseids and the best ways to view it. To view and join the chat, go to this link on Aug. 12 a few minutes before 3 p.m. EDT. A chat window will be active at the bottom of the page. Log in, then Bill will start answering your questions at 3:00 EDT. And then…stay up all night with NASA! Later that night — Aug. 12 — from 11:00 p.m. to 5 a.m. EDT, Bill will take your questions via Web chat. You can also “listen” to the Perseids on that page.

And for more detailed info about this year’s Perseid Meteorshower, check out our own article by astronomer Tammy Plotner!