Eta Aquarid meteor shower will be visible starting this May 5th

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This will be a good year to observe the Eta Aquarids, since the new Moon, on May 8, will allow the meteor shower to continue with nocturnal darkness at its zenith, from May 5 to May 7.

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower is visible every year between April 19 and May 28. Their observation is most favorable from places located in the tropics, such as the Canary Islands, and in the southern hemisphere, although they can also be observed in the northern hemisphere.

The Eta Aquarids are associated with Halley’s Comet, as is the Orionid meteor shower, which takes place in October. The meteors of the Eta Aquarids have an activity rate of between 40 and 85 meteors per hour and a fairly high speed, about 66 kilometers per second, reports the National Astronomical Observatory (OAN).

For observers in mid-latitudes the Eta Aquarid radiant is above the horizon from four hours after midnight until dawn.

THE WAKE OF HALLEY’S COMET

The Eta Aquarid meteors are fragments of Comet 1/P Halley. Halley’s Comet orbits the Sun every 76 years and was last seen from Earth in 1986.

Like every year around this time, the Earth passes through a ring populated with the fragments broken off by Halley’s Comet. When one of these fragments (or meteoroids) comes into contact with the Earth’s atmosphere, it burns up due to friction with the air, thus creating the luminous glow that we know as a meteor or shooting star. Halley’s Comet is also the source of another meteor shower, the Orionids, which peak around October 21.

The corresponding meteor shower appears to have a single center of origin, a point from which all shooting stars appear to emerge. That point is called “radiant” and its location is used to name the meteor shower. Thus, the Ata Aquarids have their radiant in the star Eta of the constellation Aquarius.