Lovers of the celestial spectacle really have something to look forward to this week. The Orionid meteor shower will light up the sky. These are the remains of the legendary Halley’s comet, which disappear in our atmosphere.
This year’s Orionid maximum falls on Saturday, October 21 and Sunday, October 22, 2023. This is because the Earth will fly through particles left behind by Halley’s Comet. It is the mother body of this meteor shower.
And the conditions will be more than favorable. The moon will be low above the horizon in the constellation of Aquarius in the first quarter. Plus, it sets before midnight. “At the same time, the radiant projected into Orion’s club in the northeastern part of the constellation rises above the horizon during the late hours of the night, and the best conditions are in the second half of the night and early in the morning between one and five in the morning, when the Moon will not interfere,” he informed on website Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
However, it is necessary to observe the meteor shower far from large cities, where light pollution is not so evident. “During the maximum of the shower, we can expect up to dozens of shower meteors per hour in the dark sky, coming from the fragments of a more unknown hairy star,” the astronomers added.
According to experts, the Orionids are not a very active swarm. Sometimes, however, they are able to produce a fairly bright meteor, the so-called bolide. Swarm activity is gradual and lasts for more than a month from October 2nd to November 7th. “So the maximum is not sharp at all. So it makes sense to look at the Orionids several nights before and after the maximum,” the experts pointed out.
NASA launched a probe into space to land on a small planet. You will learn more in the following report (10/2023):
TN.cz
2023-10-17 08:44:00
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