As May comes to an end, it’s set to go out with a bang as the Tau Herculids meteor shower is likely to light up the skies above us. The event could become a potential meteor storm as astronomers are speculating it could produce over 1000 meteors every hour overnight.
The meteor shower is the result of Earth passing through the debris field of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. While stargazers are hopeful of watching the event, scientists across the world are not fully sure about the occurrence of 1000 meteors per hour.
While it will only be visible in parts of North America, people in India can watch the meteor shower online. The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome is conducting a live stream of the event on its website.
WATCH TAU HERCULIDS METEOR SHOWER LIVE STREAM HERE
Tau Herculids are the broken parts of the parent comet, dubbed 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 or SW3. Found in 1930, the comet orbits the Sun every 5.4 years and could be seen from Earth in the evening skies in the months of July and August. Although it’s not very bright, it has been breaking apart since 1995.
The comet was discovered by Arnold Schwassmann and Arno Arthur Wachmann of Hamburg Observatory, while they were conducting a photographic search for asteroids and minor planets. The comet, was, however, not seen again till 1979 due to its very low brightness. The comet’s brightness jumped by a magnitude of 7 in 1995 and was visible to the naked eye. That’s when it began splitting.
Earth will pass through the debris trails of a broken comet on the night of May 30 and into the early morning of May 31. If the broken fragments were ejected with speeds greater than twice the normal speeds—fast enough to reach Earth—we might get a meteor shower.
