Tau Herculids meteor shower: Date, time and how to watch 'once in a generation' event
Astronomers are looking at the possibility of a new meteor shower on May 30-31. A lot of information about the new meteor shower, Tau Hercuilds circling on the internet have piqued skywatchers' curiosity. The meteor shower is expected to light up the sky on Memorial Day weekend depending on the speed and distance of the meteoroids.
According to NASA, Earth will pass through debris trails left from a broken comet that was shattered in 1995. “It would be a really spectacular meteor storm, people are even quoting up to 1,000, meteors that would be visible per hour,” astrophysicist and coordinator for the Institute for Research on Exoplanets at the Université de Montréal, Nathalie Ouellette told CTVNews in a phone interview Friday, May 27. "In comparison, a typical shower average one meteor every minute, roughly 60 an hour, said Ouettlete. However, the speed and direction of the fragments will ultimately decide how much of a spectacle onlookers will get," she added.
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What is the Tau Herculids?
Back in 1930, German observers Arnold Schwassmann and Arno Arthur Wachmann discovered a comet known as 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann, or “SW3, which orbited the Sun every 5.4 years. SW3 was quite faint and wasn’t seen again until the late 1970s, seeming pretty normal until 1995, when astronomers realized the comet had become about 600 times brighter and went from a faint smudge to being visible with the naked eye during its passage. Upon further investigation, astronomers realized SW3 had shattered into several pieces, littering its own orbital trail with debris. In fact, between 1935 and 1974, SW 3 came and went eight times without being sighted. It was not seen again until March 1979. Its next return, in January 1985 was missed, but it was recovered again early in 1990, reports Space.com. By the time it passed Earth again in 2006, it was in nearly 70 pieces, and has continued to fragment further since then.
Bill Cooke, NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office lead said that "If it makes it to us this year, the debris from SW3 will strike Earth’s atmosphere very slowly, traveling at just 10 miles per second – which means much fainter meteors than those belonging to the eta Aquariids. But North American stargazers are taking particular note this year because the tau Herculid radiant will be high in the night sky at the forecast peak time. Even better, the Moon is new, so there will be no moonlight to wash out the faint meteors.
"This is going to be an all or nothing event", Cooke said.
When can you see Tau Herculids shower?
Studies by teams of reputable meteor shower experts do conclude that Earth will have a direct interaction with material released from the splitting of SW 3 at the end of May 1995. And the possibility of a new, never-before-seen meteor display appears especially promising. According to NASA, "On the night of May 30 into the early morning of May 31, Earth will pass through the debris trails of a broken comet called 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann, or SW3". A consensus of the various predictions all points to 05:00 UT/GMT on Tuesday, May 31; 1 am EDT on Tuesday, May 31, or 10 pm PDT on Monday, May 30.
“The issue is that because it's the first time that we're passing through this debris field, it might be that we're actually going to pass just in front of it and we're going to miss most of the really good big chunks,” Outtlete explained.
Where can you see the Tau Herculids shower?
The actual speed of the Tau Herculids shower will be slow and the event will be best visible in parts of North and entire Central America (optimum of radiant elevation and darkness: roughly southern California, Mexico to Texas) according to the International Meteor Organization.
Furthermore, the new moon will allow better optics during the shower. “Typically if you have a full moon during a meteor shower it’s not so good because the moon is drowning out any shooting stars,” Ouellette explained. “Because we have a new moon we’re actually going to have a pretty dark sky so that’s one piece of good news,” she added.
The point from which the Tau Herculids stream will be above Baja, California near the bright star Arcturus, per the Old Farmer's Almanac. Unfortunately, for far western and northern North America, as well as for the rest of the globe, the sky will either be too bright, bathed in sunlight or facing away from any incoming meteors, precluding a view of any possible display.