Astrology

Southern Taurid meteor shower builds toward two peak nights this fall

The Southern Taurid meteor shower, underway since September 20, is building toward its best fireball activity around the night of November 4 to 5, according to Live Science and Scientific American. The shower, one of the longest-running of the year, runs through November 20 and produces only about five to ten meteors an hour at its peak, but it has a reputation for unusually bright, slow meteors called fireballs, Live Science reports.

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Two peak nights and a dark-sky bonus#

The American Meteor Society lists the Southern Taurids as active from September 20 through November 20, with an annual component peaking around October 14 and a fireball-heavy component peaking overnight on November 4 to 5, Space reports. That second date is the one worth watching for anyone hoping to see one of the bright, slow-moving meteors the shower is known for, according to Space.

Scientific American reports that only about a fifth of the moon's disk will be lit during the November 4 to 5 peak, which the American Meteor Society calls 'generally favorable' viewing conditions. The shower's sister display, the Northern Taurids, begins October 20, overlaps with the Southern Taurids for several weeks, and is expected to peak the night of November 11 to 12, according to Scientific American.

Despite the fireball reputation, Space reports that observers should not expect a dense shower of shooting stars. The outlet puts the Southern Taurids' average zenithal hourly rate, the theoretical count visible under ideal conditions with the radiant directly overhead, at about five meteors per hour, meaning real-world counts run lower still.

Why the Taurids run so long#

The Taurids are actually two related showers, the Southern and Northern Taurids, both radiating from the constellation Taurus near the Pleiades star cluster, Space reports. The Southern Taurids trace back to Comet 2P/Encke, a comet measuring about 2.98 miles wide, according to Scientific American, while the Northern Taurids are linked to the asteroid 2004 TG10, according to Wikipedia.

Because the two streams overlap for weeks in late October and early November, skywatchers are better served tracking the sky over an extended stretch rather than a single night, Space notes. EarthSky adds that in most years only about one percent of Taurid meteors are fireballs, though that share can climb to as high as seven percent in exceptional years when Earth crosses a denser part of the debris field.

A separate claim about Taurid risk#

Antarctica Journal reports that researchers have identified a new branch of the Taurids meteor stream and that asteroids up to 1,000 feet wide pass near Earth every few years within it, though the outlet notes there is not yet enough data to quantify any risk. Study author Jiri Borovicka said a systematic search for asteroids within the branch is needed to determine the size and frequency of large bodies there, and described the odds of a strike during a close encounter as 'a lottery.'

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