Tomorrow morning, set your alarm for just before dawn and go outside and look up. It’s the peak of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, as reported by Thrillist. Although this shower began in mid-April and will last until the end of May, right now is the best time to catch as many meteors as possible with a window of peak viewing on the mornings of May 5, 6 and 7. That means you might be able to see 10-20 shooting stars per hour if the skies are clear. If you live near the equator, that number might be more like 50 per hour.
Those living in southern states will have a better chance of seeing them. Unfortunately, the moon will be a full moon on Friday, May 5, so its full shininess will make it harder to glean the quick flashes of meteors. Light polluter! But space.com’s interview with Bill Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office (not a made-up place) reassures us that there could be a “significant outburst,” which means the moon’s glow won’t completely ruin everything.
Get this: particles ejected from Comet Halley in 390 B.C.E. are what will be on display. That’s the year of the Sack of Rome by the Gauls! Those long-ago particles are only just now making their way into our skies. These are profuse meteors, with more than twice the norm visible.
The name Eta Aquarids is used because the meteors are coming from around the bright star Eta Aquarii of the Aquarius constellation. Eta Aquarii is estimated to be nearly three times the mass of the sun and radiates 103 times its luminosity. Nice work for what just seems like a bright star. The place where all the meteors seem to be coming from is called the radiant. But don’t stare directly at the radiant. The Planetary Society advises that you look 45 degrees away from it.
All that’s left to do now is to lie down facing the sky with your feet pointing east. Give yourself a half hour for your eyes to adjust and then... start being awed.
Want to learn more about space? Spend the day with an astronaut at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, visit this Denver, Colorado museum to find out what space smells like, or stay in this Joshua Tree, California Airbnb that's made of a glass dome so you don't even have to leave your bed to see the show. And if you want to bone up for the rest of the year on what meteor showers and other phenomena to look out for, use this to mark your calendar.