Tau Herculids Meteor Shower: 1,000 Shooting Stars Per Hour May Be Visible On May 30-31. Here Is How To Watch Online
The tau Herculids meteor shower may be visible if the fragments of comet SW3 are ejected with speeds greater than twice the normal speeds.
New Delhi: A new meteor shower — the tau Herculids — may light up the sky on May 30-31. A dazzling display of tau Herculids meteor shower could be "hit or miss", according to NASA.
Earth will pass through the debris trails of a broken comet called 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann, or SW3, on the night of May 30 into the early morning of May 31, NASA said on its website.
Comet SW3 broke into large fragments in 1995, and will not reach this point in its orbit until August 2022.
Earth may get a meteor shower if the fragments are ejected with speeds greater than twice the normal speeds. This is because these speeds would make the fragments fast enough to reach Earth.
According to a study published in 2009, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope made some observations which indicate that at least some fragments are moving fast enough.
If a meteor shower occurs, the tau Herculids will appear faint because they are moving slowly by meteor standards. As many as 1,000 shooting stars per hour could be visible in the skies.
An image taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the broken comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 moving along a trail of debris left during its multiple trips around the Sun. The flame-like objects seen in the picture are the comet's fragments and their tails.
All About Tau Herculids Meteor Shower
German observers Arnold Schwassmann and Arno Arthur discovered the SW3 comet in 1930. The comet orbited the Sun every 5.4 years, and was so faint that it was not seen again until the late 1970s. The comet seemed pretty normal until 1995, when astronomers realised the comet had become about 600 times brighter and went from a faint smudge to being visible with the naked eye during its passage.
Astronomers later discovered that SW3 had shattered into several pieces, and was littering its own orbital trail with debris. By the time SW3 passed Earth again in 2006, it was in nearly 70 pieces. Since then, the comet has continued to fragment.
If SW3 makes it to Earth this year, the debris from the comet will strike Earth's atmosphere very slowly, travelling at just 10 miles per second. This means the meteor shower will be much fainter than the eta Aquariids.
However, the tau Herculids radiant will be high in the night sky at the forecast peak time for people living in North America. Also, the Moon is new, which means there will be no moonlight to wash out the faint meteors.
The meteor shower will peak at 1 am UTC on May 31 for people living in the East Coast of the United States, and at 10 pm UTC for those living on the West Coast.
Though the meteor shower will not be visible in India, people in the country can watch the astronomical event online.
One can watch the livestream of the tau Herculids meteor shower on the official YouTube channel of Virtual Telescope Project.
The broadcast will begin at 9:30 pm IST on May 31. People can also watch the webcast directly from the Virtual Telescope Project website.
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