In this 30 second exposure, a meteor streaks across the sky during the annual Perseid meteor shower, Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021, in Spruce Knob, West Virginia. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
PHILADELPHIA - If you’re outside tonight, look up. You might see a shooting star!
Every November, the Earth runs into dust leftover from the Temple–Tuttle comet.
The Temple-Tuttle comet crosses into the Earth’s path about every 30 years. It’ll cross next around 2030, and the November meteor shower will be incredible that year. The fresh comet dust will lead to so many shooting stars and bright flashes that November.
As for this year, there’s still enough dust left around from the 1998 crossing to cause brief glows of light. Blink and you might miss a shooting star.
Overnight, there will be more shooting stars than the past few nights, and they’ll pop up more frequently. With that said, it might take five to twenty minutes if you head out to look for a shooting star.
Look toward the east sky. Because they often start in the part of the sky where the Leo (the lion) group of stars is, the meteor shower gets the name Leonid. Meteor showers are often named after a constellation, a constellation near where they appear.
While you can see a meteor fly across the sky anytime Tuesday night, they’ll happen more frequently after midnight.
It’ll be tougher to spot shooting stars tonight because of the bright moonlight.
The full moon is Friday, and the moon stays in the our sky tonight until close to 5 a.m.
Did you know that moon is out all night only when it’s full? This is why you don’t see the moon up in the sky some nights when the skies are clear. In those cases, the moon didn’t rise yet or it had already set for the day.
If you don’t make it out tonight to look for meteors, keep an eye out at night over the next week or two. There’s typical a few shooting stars visible each night leading up to a meteor shower and for a week or two after the best night to view them. It just all depends on the weather if we can see any shooting stars.
Check your latest Weather Authority forecast. According to your Weather Authority, we’ll start out clear and then have a few clouds scattered across the sky toward daybreak at 6 AM. The sun will come up over the horizon at 6:45 AM.
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