Don’t miss the peak of the Taurid meteor shower with colorful fireballs and shooting stars this week.
In the next week or so, if you happen to be outside overnight and see a bright and colorful “shooting star,” you may have just seen a Taurid meteor. This annual meteor show appears like clockwork every year between mid-October and mid-November, but Nov. 5 to Nov. 12 will be the best time to look for them when they reach a wide size.
About 8 to 12 meteors per hour can be seen under dark skies during this time. Most meteor showers are best after midnight, because their rays (which appear as spots) are highest in the sky before dawn. The Taurid meteor shower is a rare event where the brightness is highest just after midnight so the shower can be seen all night.
Their name comes from the way they appear to shine in the constellation Taurus, the Bull, which sits low in the east a few hours after sunset and is almost directly overhead. around 1:30 am. , many meteors can be seen coming from it. The moon was new in Nov. 1, and on Nov. 7, will last until around 9:40 pm local time. On the morning of Nov. 12, it will be until about 2:30 am, leaving all the darkness of the night for meteor viewing.
Light streaks, but thin
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Meteors – commonly called “shooting stars” – are produced when cosmic debris enters and burns up in Earth’s atmosphere. In the case of the Taurids, they are produced by the debris left by the periodic comet Encke, which last passed through the inner solar system in October 2023 and is expected to return. February 2027.
The Taurids are the slowest of any large meteor, approaching Earth at about 30 kilometers per second. The Taurid meteor shower is known for its many brightly colored meteors. Although the predominant color is yellow, many orange, green, red and blue meteors have been reported. Sometimes this shower includes so-called “Halloween fireballs”. These can attract attention any time for several weeks, not just Halloween.
This debris stream contains larger fragments than those shed by other comets, which is why this old meteor stream sometimes produces the unusually bright meteors known as “fireballs”.
Two showers for the price of one
The Taurids are actually divided into Northern Taurids and Southern Taurids. This is an example of what happens to a meteor stream as it ages. The southern part of the Taurid shower arrives in early November, the northern part in mid-November. They overlap, and each lasts for several weeks. At this time their large, wide rays move from southeast Pisces through southern Aries to the eastern Pleiades. Bright spots climb the eastern sky in the evening so no post-midnight watches are needed. But if it wasn’t for the possibility of fireballs, this would be considered a moderate shower with little interest.
According to Margaret Campbell-Brown and Peter Brown, in the 2024 edition of the Observer’s Handbook of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, the Southern Taurids reach maximum in Nov. 5 and the Northern Taurids reach their peak a week later on Nov 12. The two southern rays of the Pleiades.
So, next week, if you see a bright, yellow sky sliding rather lazily from that famous star hill, you can be sure it’s Taurid; fragment of Encke’s comet.
Want to try your hand at photographing the Taurid meteor shower? Check out our guide to photographing meteors and meteor showers. And don’t miss our sky guide tonight, updated daily with what you need to know when watching the clouds.
Joe Rao works as a lecturer and guest lecturer in New York’s Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astrology for Magazine of Natural Historythe Farmers’ Almanac and other articles.
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