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If you look toward the southeastern skies this weekend in the hours before dawn, the chances are good that you can see a pretty good meteor shower eminating from the constellation of Aquarius. What you may not realize, however, is that this meteor shower, and another one hitting our skies in October, is a direct result of Halley’s Comet. From EarthSky.org: Halley’s Comet, proud parent of two meteor showers, swings into the inner solar system about every 76 years. At such times, the sun’s heat causes the comet to loosen its icy grip over its mountain-sized conglomeration of ice, dust and gas. At each pass near the sun, the crumbly comet sheds a fresh trail of debris into its orbital stream. It lost about 1/1,000th of its mass during its last flyby in 1986. It’s because comets like Halley are so crumbly that we see annual meteor showers, like the Eta Aquariid meteor shower that’s going on now.
Halley’s Comet - 1986 - NASA
Comet Halley’s 2 meteor showers. Because Comet Halley has circled the sun innumerable times over countless millennia, cometary fragments litter its orbit. That’s why the comet doesn’t need to be anywhere near the Earth or the sun in order to produce a meteor shower. Instead, whenever our Earth in its orbit intersects Comet Halley’s orbit, cometary bits and pieces – oftentimes no larger than grains of sand or granules of gravel – smash into Earth’s upper atmosphere, to vaporize as fiery streaks across our sky: meteors. It so happens we intersect Comet Halley’s orbit not once, but twice each year. In early May, we see bits of this comet as the annual Eta Aquariid meteor shower. Then some six months later, in October, Earth in its orbit again intersects the orbital path of Comet Halley. This time around, these broken-up chunks from Halley’s Comet burn up in Earth’s atmosphere as the annual Orionid meteor shower. By the way, these small fragments are called meteoroids when in outer space, and meteors when they vaporize in the Earth’s atmosphere.
EarthSky.org
Meteors in annual showers – made from the icy debris of comets – don’t hit the ground. They vaporize high in Earth’s atmosphere. The more rocky or metallic asteroids are what sometimes hit the ground, and then they are called meteorites. Again, the best chance to see this meteor shower is this weekend on the mornings of May 5 & 6 in the hours before dawn. The picture above shows what the constellation Aquarius will look like in the sky. Find it and let Mother Nature put on her show!