Meteor showers · the year's calendar
Meteor showers, through the year
A meteor shower is Earth crossing the trail of dust a comet or asteroid has left along its orbit. Because the crossing is at the same place in Earth's orbit every year, each shower returns on about the same date — and every meteor in it seems to fly out of one point in the sky, its radiant.
| Shower | Peak | Up to an hour | Radiant | Left by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quadrantids | 3–4 January | 110 | Boötes | Asteroid 2003 EH1 |
| Eta Aquariids | 6 May | 50 | Aquarius | Halley's Comet |
| Daytime Arietids | 7 June | 30, by radio | Aries | Comet Machholz |
| Perseids | 12–13 August | 100 | Perseus | Comet Swift–Tuttle |
| Orionids | 21 October | 20 | Orion | Halley's Comet |
| Leonids | 17 November | 15 | Leo | Comet Tempel–Tuttle |
| Geminids | 14 December | 150 | Gemini | Asteroid Phaethon |
Rates are the zenithal hourly rate: what one observer would count in an hour under a perfectly dark sky with the radiant overhead. Under a real sky expect fewer.
How to watch one
Go somewhere dark, give your eyes twenty minutes, and look about halfway up the sky rather than straight at the radiant: the meteors are longest away from it. Most showers are best after midnight, when your side of Earth faces forward into the stream. No telescope or binoculars — they show too little of the sky.
The Moon matters more than anything else. A bright Moon near a shower's peak hides all but the brightest meteors.
The Leonid storm of 1966
Some years Earth passes through a dense, young strand of dust, and a shower becomes a storm. On 17 November 1966, over the American West, the Leonids fell at an estimated 40 meteors a second for twenty minutes. Exo-View can replay that night.
In Exo-View
Pick a shower and see it three ways: from space, with the comet's orbit and Earth ploughing through its dust; and from the ground, by night and by day, at a dark site, with the real radiant, rate and sky — the Moon included.
Watch a meteor shower in 3D