Which meteor shower has the longest duration

Press expectations were high during the November nights of the next maxima, in and However, on these occasions the official count rates were disappointingly low.

Similar to the Perseid disappointment, public attention to astronomy experienced a major setback. The most recent storm which took place on November 17, and it was a complete surprise. Astonished observers in the USA could record a peak of 25 meteors during 15 minutes. So, remembering the years of , and , these meteor showers deserve out attention. However, when addressing the press, please notify that it is always risky to give any predictions.

But be sure, as one of the veteran observers told us: "IF the peak arrives, it will be an experience for your lifetime". You might see one meteor every minute or two on average.

And that's under ideal, dark-sky conditions with no moonlight or artificial light pollution. Any skyglow dramatically cuts down the number you'll see. Most meteor showers are active between midnight and dawn.

The South Taurids arrive and peak earlier than the Northern Taurids, but both are active through November. What they have in staying power, however, they do lack in frequency. They are slow and long-lasting but do not occur especially frequently. That means that they can be more difficult and less rewarding to watch, and perhaps accounts for why they are not as well known as some of the other meteor showers. Still, the advice for increasing the chances of seeing the shower are the same.

It is best to find somewhere dark and clear, let your eyes adjust to the darkness and then just spend time looking up. This led to the first predictions of Draconid activity. Sure enough, in , the great meteor observer W. Denning confirmed the existence of the shower, with a mere five meteors observed between October 6 and October 9. In and , the Draconids produced two of the greatest meteor displays of the 20th century - great storms, with peak rates of several thousand meteors per hour.

After , the Draconids went quiet, all but vanishing from our skies. Jupiter had swung the comet onto a less favourable orbit. Only a few Draconids were seen in , then again in and The late s saw a renaissance in our ability to predict and understand meteor showers, born of enhanced activity exhibited by the Leonid meteor shower. Using the techniques developed to study the Leonids, astronomers predicted enhanced activity from the Draconids in , and the predicted outburst duly occurred, with rates of around meteors per hour being observed.

The chances are good that the shower will be active - albeit unlikely to produce a spectacular storm. Modelling suggests that rates of 20 to 50 faint meteors per hour might be seen around am UT on October 9. Other models suggest that rates will peak about 45 minutes earlier, with lower rates of 15 to This year, the Moon is new at the time of the forecast peak, which is ideally timed for observers in Europe.

If skies are clear that evening, it is well worth heading out at around pm BST on October 8 am CEST on October 9 and spending a couple of hours staring north, just in case the Draconids put on another spectacular show. The inner Solar system contains a vast swathe of debris known as the Taurid stream. It is so spread out that Earth spends a quarter of the year passing through it. In June, that debris spawns the Daytime Taurid meteor shower, which as the name suggests occurs during daylight hours, and is only really known thanks to radio observations.

After leaving the stream for a little while, Earth penetrates it again at the start of September, and activity continues right through until December. Hourly rates fluctuate up and down, with several distinct peaks and troughs through October and November. The Taurid stream is complex - with at least two main components, known as the northern and southern branches. Typically, the Southern Taurids are active a little earlier in the year and reach their peak about a month before the northern branch.

The Taurids are slow meteors and feature plenty of bright fireballs. Here are 10 cool facts you can use to impress friends and family late at night or early in the morning while watching for shooting stars:.

Comet Swift-Tuttle, whose debris creates the Perseids, is the largest object known to make repeated passes near Earth. Its nucleus is about 16 miles 26 kilometers across, roughly equal to the object that wiped out the dinosaurs. Back in the early s, astronomer Brian Marsden calculated that Swift-Tuttle might actually hit Earth on a future pass.

More observations quickly eliminated all possibility of a collision. Marsden found, however, that the comet and Earth might experience a cosmic near miss about a million miles in Perseid meteoroids which is what they're called while in space are fast. They enter Earth's atmosphere and are then called meteors at roughly , mph 60 kilometers per second relative to the planet.

Most are the size of sand grains; a few are as big as peas or marbles.