Meteor Shower- October 2009

Just for the record, the image above is not of the Orionids Meteor Shower, it is a picture of the Perseids Meteor Shower. I could not find a clear picture of the Orionids Meteor Shower, and this is why I am using the Perseids Meteor Shower to substitute.

As you may know, the Orionids Meteor Shower was visible in our sky starting on October 2. This meteor shower occurs every October. Halley's Comet, which causes the Orionids Meteor Shower, also produces another meteor shower in May called Eta Aquarids.

Before I go into any more detail about the Orionids Meteor Shower specifically, I should probably give a little bit of information about meteor showers themselves. A meteor is a streak of light in the sky. They occur when a meteoroid, which is a solid moving object in space and often come from a comet (as in the case of the Orionids) , enters the atmosphere. These, when they are in clusters, are called meteor showers.

The Orionids Meteor Shower gets its name, like many other meteor showers, from a constellation it seems to radiate from. In this case, this constellation is Orion. This meteor shower will be visible from October 2 until November 7. The strongest activity supposedly took place this morning, October 21, during the predawn hours. The Orionids always seems to show what is called "submaxima activity" from October 18 until October 24. This means that sudden outbursts may occur at any time. Like I said before, the Orionids Meteor Shower is only in the sky until November 7, so if you are interested, look up and towards the constellation Orion while it is dark outside, and see what you can see!

Sources:

MeteorBlog.com: www.meteorblog.com

Wikipedia.com: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor#Meteor