The Draconid meteor shower peaks this week.
So-called “shooting stars” can be a real pain to get a good look at. Not only do they require the patience to look at as dark sky as possible for as long as you can, but the most opportune times to see these specs of dust strike Earth’s atmosphere are typically after midnight.
Not so this week’s Draconid meteor shower, an annual event that sees about 10 shooting stars per hour appear from the northern sky. Crucially, you don’t have to stay up until the small hours to see them. Instead, you can look as soon as the sky gets dark, barely an hour after sunset.
Here’s everything you need to know about seeing “shooting stars” during this week’s Draconid meteor shower peak:
When to see the Draconid meteor shower
Go stargazing as soon as it gets dark on Friday-Saturday, October 8-9, 2021. That’s the peak of the Draconid meteor shower and you can expect to see about 10 shooting stars each hour during the entire night.
They’re visible all night long because the Draconid meteor shower occurs within the constellation of Draco, the dragon, which is circumpolar. That means it’s visible all night because—like the Big Dipper—it appears to revolve around Polaris, the “North Star,” which Earth’s northern axis points at. Consequently, Draco is above the horizon all night so its “shooting stars” are, too.
The Draconid meteor showers occurs from October 6-10 every year, but peaks on the night of October 8-9, 2021.
Draco wraps around Ursa Minor, the "Little Dipper," but it can be hard to find because most of its ... [+]
Where to see the Draconid meteor shower
The Draconid meteor shower occurs within Draco, a mighty constellation in the northern sky that’s close to Hercules, Cepheus , Ursa Minor and Ursa Major—the latter home to the Big Dipper.
Draco is the radiant point of the Draconids, the region of the night sky that its “shooting stars” appear to originate from. Although they can appear anywhere in the night sky as streaks of fast-moving lights, if you trace those streaks back you’ll get to a common origin.
What causes the Draconid meteor shower
Comets leave a trail of debris and dust called meteoroids behind them as they travel through space, particularly when they get close to the Sun. When a comet’s trajectory intersects Earth’s own orbital path around the Sun it leaves behind it clumps of meteoroids that Earth will inevitably have to bust through once a year.
In the case of the Draconids it’s meteoroids left by Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, which in 1985 was the first comet visited by a spacecraft, the International Cometary Explorer (ICE) satellite. It was last in the inner Solar System in 2018 and will again visit in 2025, so the Draconids is a meteor shower that gets regularly refreshed.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
