Everything you need to know about the Draconid meteor shower this week
The meteor shower will peak on Thursday night, as darkness falls.
FILE: Dashcam captures the moment a meteor streaks across sky
SEE IT: A driver in Brentwood, Tennessee, was able to capture the moment a meteor streaked across the night sky over the weekend, as the fireball was 16 times brighter than Venus.
THE TAKEAWAY
- The Dracoid meteor shower takes place this week, with peak taking place Thursday.
- The best time to catch sight of some of the meteors is during the evening hours.
- Find a place with no moonlight and look for the Draco constellation.
The Draconids are peaking this week, and luckily they shouldn't be hard to miss for stargazers who want to catch the show.
Stemming from dust left behind by small, periodic comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, the Draconid meteor shower begins on Tuesday evening, according to EarthSky.org.
This meteor shower is a little different from other popular meteor showers because the best time to catch sight of some of the meteors happens during the evening hours.
The Draconids are likely to only produce a few meteors per hour, but some years offer more exciting shows than others, producing a storm of meteors, according to EarthSky.
A fisherman watches a meteor during the Draconid meteor shower over Howick rocks in Northumberland. Picture date: Sunday October 10, 2021.
(Owen Humphreys/PA Images / Getty Images)
According to EarthSky, the most recent reported "burst" of meteors from the Draconids was in 2018.
The meteor shower will peak on Thursday night, as darkness falls.
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To see them, find a place with no moonlight and look for the Draco constellation, near its head. That's where the radiant point, or the place in the sky where the meteors originate from, can be found.
The Draconid meteor shower radiant point in the Draco constellation.
(NASA/JPL-Caltech / NASA)
The Draconids are best seen in the Northern Hemisphere, EarthSky said.
It is possible to view the Draconids from the Southern Hemisphere as long as the radiant point in the constellation Draco is above the horizon.
Earthsky said if the constellation is below the horizon or only rises for a short time, it's unlikely to see many, if any, Draconids.
You can catch the meteors until Saturday.