Bright flashes of shooting stars are set to streak across the night sky this week as the Orionids meteor shower hits its peak—and if you’re lucky (and patient), you could spot dozens of these meteors.
NASA estimates stargazers might see three to six meteors per hour in suburban areas, with even more shooting stars likely to be seen in rural areas with less light pollution. Night owls can rejoice: the “prime viewing window” will occur after the moon sets around 3 A.M. over the nights of October 21 and October 22, NASA says.
The Orionids’ shooting stars are particularly fast and bright. They travel at around 41 miles per second, and the fastest ones can leave fiery trails of debris in their wake or even ignite into fireballs.
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Meteor showers are the beautiful remains of debris trailing from comets and asteroids. As that debris hits our atmosphere, it burns up, creating the light shows we know as meteor showers and love to view. The Orionids gets their name from the constellation Orion because the shower seems to flow from that direction, but that’s not their true origin. These meteors were once part of Halley’s Comet.
The comet sheds rock, dust and ice as it shoots through the solar system. This iconic space rock is visible from Earth once every 75 to 76 years or so—it is famous for its brightness, appearing in historical records stretching back for millennia. Although we won’t see Halley’s again until 2061, the Orionids offer a glimpse of its leftovers.
If you can’t catch the Orionids, look out for a spooky full moon that’s traditionally called the “hunter’s moon” next week, on October 26. Plus, the Taurid meteor showers, which have been shooting across the sky since September, are set to peak next month: you can catch the Southern Taurids’ peak on November 4–5 and the Northern Taurids’ peak on November 11–12.
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