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Orionid meteors to peak this weekend

  • 20-10-2006 7:32pm
    #1
    slade_x
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 1,426 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    One of the year's best displays of meteors will occur this weekend. Called the Orionids, the meteors are bits of rocky debris shed from Halley's Comet that burn up in Earth's atmosphere.
    The display will be visible for both northern and southern hemisphere observers and should produce 20 meteors per hour at its peak. Friday night and Saturday night should be best, especially very early in the morning.
    Meteors in the Orionid family can appear anywhere in the sky, but their paths trace back to a spot in the constellation Orion, from which they take their name.
    The best strategy is to lie down and stare at as large a patch of sky as possible, rather than focusing directly on Orion. Most of the meteors will be faint and most easily seen from a dark site far from city lights.
    Halley's Comet passes through the inner solar system every 76 years, littering its orbit with bits of dust and rock as it goes. The Orionid meteors that we see today are due to debris that has built up along Halley's orbital path over thousands of years.

    dn10341-1_250.jpg
    Meteor showers result from debris shed
    naturally by comets as sunlight heats them.
    The nucleus of Comet Tempel 1 ejects
    material after NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft
    collided with it on July 4, 2005
    (Image: NASA/JPL/Caltech/UMD)

    Source

    EDIT:

    Oh and for those unaware the orion nebula region will be visible in our skies from 1am onward in the East /Southeastern sky. maybe even before between 12 ish to 1 ish depending on how obscured your view of the horizon is


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