If recent events are making you anxious ( and who could fault you ) , mayhap you ’d like to turn your eyes to the sky and distract yourself with what the heavens have to offer . The Northern Taurids meteor shower is now visible .
This shower and its sibling , the Southern Taurids ( which peaks early on in October ) , are not the most impressive meteor spectacles out there . During their bloom , about five meteors per minute are seeable , but what they miss in summit number they make up for in other way .
The Northern Taurids tend to plateau in activityfrom early to mid - November , lasting for about 10 days . Given the Moon is currently wane ( the last full Moon was theHalloweenblue Moon ) , each night will be dark and darker , making the spectacle open .
Meteor showers are stimulate by the debris left over by celestial bodies cross Earth ’s orbit . When our planet draw through these shower bath on its yearly trek around the Sun , some of this junk gets get by Earth ’s gravity and combust up in the atmosphere . These are what we call shooting hotshot .
The parent consistence of the Northern Taurids is asteroid 2004 TG10 . It ’s a nigh - earthly concern target that ’s separate as potentially hazardous , think it could clash with our planet in the upstage future . The target is on an flakey orbit , going around the Sun every 1,220 days . The asteroid is believed to be a shard of Comet Encke , the parent body of the Southern Taurids meteor shower .
The separation of the two heavenly bodies and the cattle ranch of the two meteor showers is due to the pesky gravitational influence of Jupiter . The Northern Taurids are seeable from October 20 to December 10 . Some larger fragments are recognize to combust up during these rain shower , such as the fireball that crossed Polish sky in 1995 .
The activity of the shower is fairly standard , with an uptick every 10 and a substantial increase every 3,000 years . That ’s when the Earth bilk the obtuse part of the cloud . Unfortunately for us , it wo n’t come about again for another 1,980 years .
