A meteor shower will peak this weekend giving a display of up to 50 'shooting stars' an hour on Saturday morning over UK skies. The Eta Aquarid meteor shower will be busiest between 12am and 6am on Saturday morning.
The Eta Aquarids is an annual meteor shower that occurs between late April and mid-May each year, with the peak usually occurring around May 5 or 6. The meteor shower is associated with Halley's Comet, which orbits the sun once every 76 years.
When Earth passes through the trail of debris left by Halley's Comet, the debris enters Earth's atmosphere and burns up, creating the Eta Aquarids meteor shower. The meteor shower appears to radiate from the constellation Aquarius, and can be seen in both the northern and southern hemispheres, although it is generally more visible in the southern hemisphere.
During the peak, stargazers can expect to see around 10-20 meteors per hour, although this can vary depending on various factors such as location, weather conditions, and light pollution.
A meteor, also known as a shooting star or falling star, is a streak of light that appears in the night sky when a meteoroid (a small piece of debris or rock) enters the Earth's atmosphere at high speed and heats up due to friction with the air. The bright light that we see is caused by the superheated air around the meteoroid, which ionizes and emits light as it passes through the atmosphere.
Most meteors burn up completely before they reach the Earth's surface, but occasionally larger meteoroids may survive and land on the Earth's surface as meteorites. Meteors can appear as quick streaks of light, sometimes leaving a trail behind them, and they can be seen on clear nights with no special equipment, although their visibility can be affected by light pollution and weather conditions. Meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through the debris field left behind by a comet or asteroid, resulting in a higher frequency of meteors visible in the night sky.
Halley's Comet is a famous short-period comet that is visible from Earth every 76 years. It was named after the British astronomer Edmund Halley, who calculated its orbit in the late 17th century and predicted its return in 1758. The comet is named after him as he was the first to recognize that the same comet appeared in 1531, 1607, and 1682, and correctly predicted that it would return again in 1758.
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Halley's Comet is a relatively small comet, with a nucleus estimated to be about 15 kilometers in diameter. It is known for its distinctive appearance, with a bright coma (the cloud of gas and dust surrounding the nucleus) and a long, dusty tail that can be seen from Earth.
The comet's orbit takes it from beyond the orbit of Neptune at its farthest point, to within the orbit of Venus at its closest point to the sun. Each time the comet passes close to the sun, it heats up and releases gas and dust, creating a visible coma and tail.
Halley's Comet last appeared in the inner solar system in 1986 and is next expected to be visible from Earth in 2061.
