THE annual Taurid Meteor Shower has just reached its peak in the Northern Hemisphere.
As fragments left over from Comet Encke enter the Earth’s atmosphere, they burn up and create beautiful shooting stars that you could spot this evening.
When is Taurid Meteor Shower happening and when is the best time to watch?
The meteor shower takes place every year between September and November, but in 2021 will be most visible around November 11 and 12.
Approximately five to ten shooting stars will be visible every hour throughout the night.
The best time to watch the show is after midnight.
The phenomenon has previously been dubbed “nature’s fireworks.”
THE LATEST IN SPACE
Where is best to watch it in the UK?
The best place to watch any meteor shower is somewhere with clear skies – an unobstructed horizon with as little light pollution as possible, and ideally high up.
According to Nasa: “Taurid meteors can be seen any time the constellation Taurus is above the horizon during the months of September, October, and November.
“The best time to look for Taurids is after midnight, when Taurus is high in the sky, and when the sky is dark and clear, with no moonlight to mask the fainter meteors.
“Given the behaviour of past Taurid swarms, increased fireball activity may be seen during the last week of October and the first two weeks of November.”
What is a meteor shower?
A meteor shower is when fireballs appear to streak across the sky.
What is actually happening is pieces of debris rapidly burning up as they eneter the earth’s atmosphere.
Many of these showers are regularly repeated.
The Orionids shower is debris from Halley’s Comet, a huge chunk of ice orbiting the Sun.
According to the Greenwich Royal Observatory: “What we are witnessing when we see a shooting star is a small piece of interplanetary matter, called a meteor, entering the Earth’s atmosphere and ‘burning up’ at a height of about 100 km.”
- Get all the latest Science news
- Keep up-to-date with the top Space & Astronomy stories
- All the latest Archaelogy news from dinosaurs to Ancient artefacts
In other news, three entirely new lifeforms were recently discovered at different locations onboard the International Space Station.
Nasa has announced that it is accepting applications for wannabe space explorers who wish to fire their names to the Red Planet.
And, the Perseverance Mars rover has revealed stunning video and audio recordings from the surface of the Red Planet.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at [email protected]
Source link
