Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on exciting discoveries, scientific advances and more.
Look up at the night sky this week for a chance to see high-speed meteors and bright fireballs from two meteor showers peaking around the same time.
The Southern Delta Aquariids will be most active Monday night into early Tuesday and may call into view up to 25 meteors per hour depending on your location, according to the American Meteor Society. And on Tuesday night, the small Alpha Capricornids shower – known for its bright fireballs – could bring five meteors an hour to the celestial party.
A fireball is defined as a meteor that is brighter than the planet Venus and is caused by a larger meteor that can be more than 1 meter (more than 3 feet) in diameter, according to NASA.
Meteor showers are the debris left by comets and asteroids orbiting the sun that Earth encounters every year at some point during its orbital path. The debris trail of the Southern Delta Aquariids is spread out, so the shower could produce about the same rates of meteors for a few days around its peak, said Robert Lunsford, the fireball report coordinator for the American Meteor Society.
Wednesday night is the best time to see both showers, Lunsford said, as the moon wanes and loses about 8% illumination each night. (Moonlighting can block the visibility of smaller meteors.) On Monday, the moon will be about 34% full, and on Wednesday the orb will be 16% full, according to NASA’s Daily Moon Guide.
How to see a meteor
To see meteor showers, it’s best to look with your eyes only and not use any equipment like binoculars or a telescope, because you’ll need a clear view of the entire sky, said Andrew Rivkin, a planetary astronomer and research scientist with the Physics Laboratory Functions at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
“Find yourself somewhere dark, away from the city lights, if you can, with a view of the open sky and settle in,” Rivkin said. He recommends sitting outside for at least 10 to 15 minutes to let your eyes adjust to the darkness.
The best time to see meteors is around 4 a.m. local time when the radiant, the constellation from which meteor showers appear to originate, is highest in the sky, Lunsford said. The two meteor showers will be visible around the world, although the Northern Hemisphere may see lower rates of meteors per hour – but up to 10 – because the radiant will be lower in the sky, he said.
The constellation Aquarius is the radiant for the South Delta Aquarians, and the constellation Capricornus is the radiant for the Alpha Capricornids. The two constellations will be near each other in the southwest sky, Lunsford said.
“Even though they’re right next to each other, you can tell them apart, because the Alpha Capricornids are much slower,” he said. Southern Delta Aquariids are about 40 kilometers (25 miles) per second, according to NASA, and typically last for half a second.
However, the Alpha Capricornids tend to be larger and more likely to last at least a second, Lunsford said. “They’re not as strong as the Southern Delta Aquariids—maybe five hours at best—but they’re known for producing fireballs. So you might see in an hour four fairly faint ones and then a nice bright one that lasts a few seconds.”
Although the Perseid meteor shower is still a few weeks away from its peak on the evening of Aug. 11, it has also been active in the night sky since mid-July and can be seen alongside these other showers, Lunsford said. “You might only see a few hours, but they’re usually bright and very fast,” he said. “So if you’re starting to lean, they’ll really wake you up.”
Earlier in July, a fireball streaked across the sky in broad daylight over parts of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and other Northeastern US states, sparking excitement across the East Coast. Some meteor enthusiasts caught the rare spectacle on camera.
“It’s a case of the universe coming to us. It interacts with us in a way that we might not normally think about,” said Rivkin. “Every day we see the sun and we see the moon. Those are up there, kind of constant, the stars are constant – but meteors are things that don’t normally exist. … You may be the only person who has ever seen a particular meteor. I think that makes them very special.”
Meteor showers
Here are the remaining meteor showers that are expected to peak in 2024.
Perseids: August 11-12
Draconids: 7-8 October
Orionids: October 20-21
Southern Taurids: November 4-5
Northern Taurids: November 11-12
Leonids: November 17-18
Geminids: December 13-14
Ursids: 21-22 December
Remaining moons of 2024
There are five more full moons this year, according to the Farmers’ Almanac.
August 19: Sturgeon moon
September 17: Autumn moon
October 17: Hunter’s moon
November 15: Beaver Moon
December 15: Cold moon
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com