The peak of three meteor showers – called Piscis Austrinids, Alpha Capricornids, and Southern Delta Aquariids – are expected to occur from Thursday, July 28 to Sunday, July 31.
The Piscis Austrinids meteor shower is meant to peak first, beginning tonight, while the Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids will both peak on Saturday.
Meteor showers’ peak periods tend to last for about 48 hours.
The showers will be best visible from the Southern Hemisphere, meaning Australians should have prime viewing.
Macquarie University astronomer Professor Orsola De Marco has said the spectacular light shows will all come from the same area of the night sky.
She has advised that Alpha Capricornids could be particularly spectacular, with the shower able to produce very bright ‘fireball’ meteors that appear to fall slowly across the sky.
Alpha Capricornids comes from comet 169P-NEAT, which split from a different comet around 3000 years ago.
The three showers will peak during the dark sky of a new moon, and between them may produce around 35 meteors per hour at their peak.
A meteor shower occurs when the Earth passes through the orbit of a comet’s tail, the National Geographic has explained.
The particles that comets shed create colourful streaks, known as a meteor shower, when they collide with the atmosphere.
To best view a meteor shower, people are advised to get away from bright lights.
Midnight is also said to be the best time to view them, once the moon has set.
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