The Eta Aquariid meteor shower is expected to peak in the early hours of Saturday, May 6.
It’s time to camp, gather your sleeping bags and get ready for a night of stargazing, as you might be able to see a spectacular sight of 120 to 160 shooting stars per hour.
Eta Aquariids occur when Earth passes through Comet Halley’s debris trail.
Here’s everything you need to know.
When is the Eta Aquariids meteor shower this year?
According to the Royal Museums Greenwich, the meteor shower is active between April 19 and May 28 but will peak between midnight and dawn on May 6 this year.
Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said: “A meteor shower is like a normal rain shower, with 50 to 60 meteors per hour.
“An explosion is like a thunderstorm, with higher than normal meteor activity. A meteor storm is like a tornado, where meteor rates are greater than a thousand per hour.”
Where does the name Eta Aquariids come from?
Eta Aquariids usually peak at the beginning of May each year and are known for their speed.
Eta Aquariid takes its name from the constellation in the night sky from which it appears to radiate – the constellation Aquarius.
But instead of being called the Aquarid meteor shower, the name comes from one of the stars in that constellation, Eta Aquarii.
The Eta Aquariid is one of two meteor showers created by debris from Comet Halley.
Halley’s Comet is visible from Earth once every 76 years or so.
“The bits of space debris that interact with our atmosphere to create the Eta Aquarids come from Comet 1P/Halley,” NASA’s website said.
Comet Halley was first discovered by English astronomer Edmund Halley in 1705.
He predicted the comet’s orbit through past sightings of comets, suggesting that those sightings were, in fact, all the same comet.
Halley is known to be the most famous comet and was last seen in 1986.
NASA has announced that it will return in 2061 on its regular 76-year journey around the Sun.
How can I see it in the UK?
The Eta Aquariid meteor shower can be seen in both the northern and southern hemispheres, but NASA said the highest visibility will be in the southern hemisphere.
“This is due to the radiant’s location in the constellation Aquarius. Meteors will be observable after midnight, but peak times are 3-4 a.m. until dawn,” NASA said.
The Royal Museums Greenwich website states: “This downpour favors the southern hemisphere and will appear low in the sky for northern latitudes (such as the UK) in the early hours of dawn.”
In order to get the best view, here is what you can do:
• Be sure to check the weather forecast! If it’s cloudy, try a day before or after the peak period.
The Met Office said Friday would be a day of sunshine and showers.
Saturday will be another cloudy and wet day for many people across the UK.
So be sure to prepare ahead of time if you want to catch the Eta Aquariid meteor shower.
NASA also advised people to:
• Get as far away from city lights as possible to get the best view of the meteor shower.
• Give yourself 30 minutes in the dark for your eyes to adjust.
• Don’t look at your phone – again, stay away from light.
• Try not to look at the moon.
And finally, make yourself comfortable! For the best method of stargazing, lie down and gaze up at the night sky.
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What is a meteor shower?
Simply put, a meteor the shower is a space rock or a meteoroid entering the earth’s atmosphere.
“As the space rock falls towards Earth, the resistance or drag of the air on the rock makes it extremely hot. What we see is a ‘shooting star’.
“This light trail is not actually the rock, but rather the glowing hot air as hot rock passes through the atmosphere,” NASA said.
“When the Earth encounters several meteoroids at once, we call it a meteor shower,” he adds.
Here are some meteor showers over the years
A single Geminid meteor smashes through Orion’s Sword during the peak night of the Geminid meteor shower, December 2017. Photo: AP
A composite showing about three dozen Perseid meteors accumulated over 3 hours of time, compressed into a single image showing the radiant point of the Perseus meteor shower in 2021.
A meteor crosses the sky during the annual Perseid meteor shower in 2021.
