Even though Oct. 31 has passed, “Halloween Fireballs,” as NASA refers to the Taurid fireballs, will be seen blazing through the sky as part of the Taurid meteor shower this November.
What is the Taurid meteor shower?
Every year between September and November, pebble-sized dust and rubble hit the Earth at 65,000 mph and burn up, creating the Taurid meteor shower.
The debris was left behind by the comet Encke. The current theory from scientists, per Earthsky, is that Encke was a part of a much larger comet that broke up around 20,000 years ago.
Encke orbits around the sun, completing a rotation once every three years — the shortest of any meteor in the solar system — leaving a trail of debris in its wake.
Often the shower is rather weak, per the American Meteor Society, only producing around five meteors in an hour at its peak. Other years the Taurid puts on a show — shooting across the heavens spectacular fireballs that are brighter than Venus.
This year the Taurid may be dramatically more active than usual. According to Earthsky, every seven years Jupiter’s gravitational pull gets ahold of the meteor shower, splitting it into two streams.
The overlap of North Taurid and South Taurid causes a significant increase in fireball activity. As the last fireball activity was in 2015, scientists predict that we are due for more shortly. Contrary to what “Ghostbusters” would have you believe, maybe crossing the streams isn’t so bad? At least when it comes to celestial bodies.
The fireballs are described by CNN as larger than a meter across. They hit the atmosphere at a perpendicular angle, causing it to move slowly across the night sky, in comparison to the milliseconds of visibility of other meteors. They are exceptionally bright and usually a red, orange or yellowish color.
“It would be like a shooting star,” Mike Hankey, the American Meteor Society’s operations manager and creator of its fireball tracking program, told CNN. “But instead of lasting a half of a second, it might last for three or four seconds, and instead of just being as bright as a star, it might be as bright as the moon — sometimes even brighter.”
How to see the Taurid meteor shower
The Taurid meteor shower can be found just above the constellation Taurus (hence the name Taurid) during the months of September, October and November.
The peak for the South Taurid is Nov. 5 and the peak for North Taurid is Nov. 12, per Earthsky.
The best time to spot a shooting star is after midnight when there is little moonlight and Taurus is at its highest point in the sky, according to NASA.