Meteor shower is
set to light up in sky!!!
This
is a long time to wait; Halley last came into view in 1985/1986 and won’t be
back again until 2061. That means another 43 years of waiting, but thanks to
the convenient interplay between Earth and Halley debris floating in space, sky
watchers have another way to see at least small parts of this “dirty snowball”,
in the form of the Orionid Meteor
Halley
nears the Sun in its orbit, the comet warms up and discharges some of its gases
and dust. Over time, these sand-sized grains of debris spread throughout the
comet’s orbit. When the orbits of Earth and the debris intersect, many of the
particles come in contact with Earth’s atmosphere and burn up, creating a
shower of meteors.
Halley’s
Comet meets up with Earth’s atmosphere twice a year, once in October to produce
the Orionid Meteor Shower and again in May for the Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower.
For
this month’s Orionids, the fragments of Halley travel at speeds of about 66
kilometers per second, the shooting stars or falling stars but have nothing to
do with stars. These misnomers go back to the days when the true nature of
meteors was misunderstood, and they were believed to be the remnants of stars.
The peak time around oct, 22 and the meteors
may be seen at any time of night, the majority are visible after midnight, when
Earth is turning into the path of the oncoming debris. While the Orionid Meteor
Shower runs from Oct. 2 through Nov. 7
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