Early rising stargazers in Australia will be in prime position to catch a glimpse of the Orionid meteor shower, which will this week pass through our atmosphere.
Those who tend to wake before dawn will have the best chance of seeing the shower. For those who miss it, there’s still the biggest meteor event of the year yet to come – the Geminid meteor shower.
Here’s what you need to know about the Orionid meteor shower and where you can see it from around the country if you’re up in time.
What is the Orionid meteor shower?
Jonti Horner, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland, says the Orionids are the result of the dust and debris left behind by Halley’s comet.
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“This dust and debris is spread out a bit in space and it means that essentially there is this giant tube of dust through the solar system and it’s pretty wide now and it takes the Earth about a month to pass through it,” Horner says.
“When the Earth reaches that location in our orbit, we will run into this dust and so we’ll get the meteor shower. And that’s what makes it an annual meteor shower.”
This year’s meteor shower will peak this week, on Tuesday and Wednesday.
When can you see it in Australia?
If you want to catch a glimpse of the Orionids, you’ll need to set an alarm to make sure you’re up in the early hours.
For people in the Brisbane area, the radiant for the Orionids isn’t rising until about 10.30pm at night.
In Sydney, the Orionids shower isn’t appearing high in the sky until close to midnight, Horner says
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He says the Orionids’ radiant will be at its highest in the sky for about 30 minutes, from roughly 4-4.30am (AEDT).
But the best chance of viewing it is about an hour before and after it is at its highest point.
“If I was getting up for them … I would look at setting my alarm for maybe 2.30am [3.30am AEDT] and watching through until about 4.30am [5.30am],” Horner says.
“This is when I would be looking to get the best view.”
At this time of night – even with the best conditions and clear skies – stargazers may only see about 10 to 15 meteors an hour, he says.
Why do meteor showers happen?
Horner says a meteor is simply a bit of dust and debris crashing into the Earth’s atmosphere, at a speed between 12km and 72km a second.
“When you see a shooting star, you’re seeing something smaller than a grain of rice typically hitting the Earth’s atmosphere at a very high speed and burning powerfully way overhead,” Horner says.
“The solar system is littered with this kind of dust and debris, which means that you’ve got meteors popping off all the time.”
What else can stargazers look forward to?
A bigger event is the Geminid meteor shower, which will peak on the night of 14 December.
“The Geminids are the best meteor shower of the year by far – and that’s worldwide,” Horner says. “They are slightly better for the northern hemisphere than the southern hemisphere, but they are much better than the Orionids.
“They are also at their best around 2am-3am local time but depending on where you are in the country, you can start seeing them a bit earlier in the evening.”
He says those who watch the Geminids event could see between 30 and 60 meteors an hour.
