Between October 20 and 22, the maximum production phase of the Orionids, meteors known for their brilliance and speed, is expected. On average, you can see 25 “shooting stars per hour”, but there can be as few as 10 or even 60. This depends on the trajectory of our planet and the saturation of the particle cloud.

Orionids

If you want to see meteors with your own eyes, you need to go outside the city and look at the sky for at least an hour. It is recommended to look at the zenith (above the head). The shooting stars in the stream must have a common origin.

This year, the sky will “spoil” the Moon in the phase of the Last Square, and in an hour you can see only 10 shooting stars. To see more, you need to stay for two or three hours.

Observations are preferably made outside or on the outskirts of large cities, as public lighting makes most meteors impossible to observe.

You can observe the Orionids after midnight until sunrise, when the constellation Orion is above the horizon.

This meteor shower is known for the very bright meteors (bolides) it sometimes produces, which is another reason to watch it.

Between October 2 and November 7, Earth passes through the outer edge of the particle cloud in the tail of Halley’s Comet 1/P. The number of meteors per hour increases, reaching a peak somewhere between October 20 and 22. The shooting stars seem to come from the constellation Orion, hence the stream’s name: Orionides.

About meteors and meteoroids

Meteors (the scientific name for shooting stars) happen all the time. It is known that in the month of August you can see meteors called Perseids. They are observed most often because it is the holiday period when many people stay out late into the night. December is also a period when you can see more meteors than usual.

In the solar system, in addition to the sun and planets, there are many more space objects. We have remnants left over from the formation of planets, ranging in size from 1 atom to hundreds of kilometers. The largest pieces are called asteroids and comets, and the medium ones (from huge chunks to very fine dust) are called meteoroids.

When meteoroids enter the atmosphere at such a high speed, the air around them as well as them ignites due to friction with the air. The air around them is heated to a temperature of several thousand degrees. This is how we see a trail of light in the sky called a meteor.

Meteoroids heat up so much that they disintegrate in the atmosphere. Sometimes they even explode, creating a bright light called a bolide.

Quite rarely, a meteoroid does not burn up completely in the atmosphere and part of it falls to Earth. It’s a meteorite.

Source: Astronomical Observatory of Admiral Vasile Urceanu

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