Astrology

Orionid meteor shower peaks under a bright moon, with rates of 10 to 20 per hour

The Orionid meteor shower reached its peak overnight from October 21 into October 22, producing an estimated 10 to 20 meteors per hour under ideal conditions, according to WeatherBug and El Cronista.

A waxing gibbous moon complicated the view this year, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory told Nature World News, drowning out fainter meteors and pushing the best viewing window to the hours before dawn, after moonset.

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Best viewing came after moonset, before dawn#

In Rochester, New York, moonset fell at 3:18 a.m. Thursday with sunrise at 7:30 a.m., leaving a narrow dark window for viewing, Yahoo Tech reported, while a strong high-pressure system was expected to keep Western New York's skies mostly clear.

Clear-sky odds varied widely by region, WeatherBug reported, with the central Plains, Midwest, Tennessee Valley, Mid-Atlantic, Carolinas and Texas among the areas with the best chances, while parts of the Southwest, Southern California, South Florida and New England faced a higher risk of clouds blocking the show.

In Sarasota, Florida, the museum's director of learning, Jessica Maxon-Berrier, put the best window at after midnight, around 1 a.m., and told ABC7 WWSB that casual observers last saw the parent comet in 1986 and will next see it in 2061.

Photographers in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, including in Qiqihar, Jiamusi, Shuangyashan, Hailin, Mudanjiang and Daqing's Dorbod county, captured the shower overnight on October 21 and 22, Global Times reported.

Debris traces back to Halley's Comet#

The meteors form when Earth crosses debris shed by Halley's Comet, officially designated 1P/Halley, which made its most recent appearance in 1986 and will not return until 2061, according to Wikipedia.

The shower runs from October 2 through November 7, 2026, so meteors do not disappear once the peak night ends, Nature World News and El Cronista both reported, though rates are expected to decline from their highest point.

The Orionids take their name from the constellation Orion, the point in the sky the meteors appear to radiate from, though the streaks are visible throughout the heavens rather than confined to a single region, Wikipedia and El Cronista both noted.

The 1910 scare over the comet's tail#

Halley's Comet's close approach in 1910 sparked fears of catastrophe after astronomers detected the toxic gas cyanogen in its tail, Gazeta Express reported, adding that scientists at the time said the tail material was too spread out to pose a real danger even as some newspapers played up the theoretical risk.

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