While the Fourth of July is only a few weeks out, there will be another fireworks display - this time an all-natural one. The Eta Aquarid meteor shower will light up the night sky in late April and early May, blinding onlookers with up to 50 meteors per hour at its height. Do you want to see the spectacular show? All you need to remember is right here.
LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 20: (EDITORS NOTE: Multiple exposures were combined in camera to produce this image.) Stars illuminate the sky on a clear night in Forest Hill on April 20, 2020, in London, England. The clear skies created by the New Moon coincide with the Lyrid meteor shower, an annual display caused by the Earth passing through a cloud of debris from a comet called C/186 Thatcher.
Why Meteor Showers Happen
NASA said a comet is a massive "dirty snowball" consisting of frozen gasses with embedded rock and dust particles that is around the size of a small town. They form beyond the orbits of the outermost planets and then travel around the sun in an elliptical orbit.
Comets leave a debris trail behind them as they orbit the planet as debris particles collide with Earth's atmosphere every year. The ions disintegrate, as a result, leaving lines through the sky.
What is the Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower?
The Earth moves through the debris trail left by the famous Halley Comet every spring. According to NASA, Edmund Halley discovered comet Halley in 1705, measuring 10 x 5 x 5 miles.
The ice and rock fragments usually burn up as meteors as they reach our atmosphere. In reality, we travel along Halley's Comet's trail twice a year, with the second crossing resulting in the Orionid meteor shower in the fall.
It takes the comet 76 years to complete one orbit around the sun. After that, the comet is visible to the naked eye as it orbits Earth. You may recall Comet Halley's last close approach to Earth in 1986.
The Eta Aquarid meteor shower is famous for its super-fast shooting stars that reach speeds of up to 44 miles per second. But don't worry, if you blink, you won't see them because they always leave glowing tracks behind them for a few seconds.
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Time and Date explains that the shooting stars seem to come from the constellation Aquarius, which is how the phenomenon got its name.
When is the Eta of the Aquarid Meteor Shower?
The meteor shower lasts from April 19 to May 28, but there are just a few shooting stars each night most of the time. So look up at the shower's peak, which comes before dawn on May 5, for the strongest chance of seeing one.
However, there will most likely be a decent performance a few days before and after the peak. The best time to see meteors during the incident is again in the early morning hours.
The meteor shower has a "rather broad maximum," EarthSky said. So "just as many meteors could be flying on the nights before and after May 5."
How Can I See the Eta Aquarid?
The radiant point from which the shooting stars emerge gets lower in the atmosphere as you head further north. Hence, making it a bit more difficult to see meteors from higher latitudes. You'll need to be in the Southern Hemisphere for the best views, but you can see the Eta Aquarids from anywhere on the planet.
The easiest way to watch a meteor shower, no matter where you are, is to get away from bright lights, switch your eyes to the shadows, and lookup
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When is the Next Meteor Shower?
The Southern Delta Aquarids and the Alpha Capricornids are the next two minor meteor showers, each of which peak in late July. Finally, the Perseids, one of the strongest meteor showers of the year, will be visible in August.
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