The Alpha Monocerotid Meteor Shower is visible between 15 and 25 November each year, with peak activity due on the night of Saturday 21 November 2020. The shower takes its name from the constellation of Monoceros (to the east of Orion), from which the meteors appear to radiate. Most years the Alpha Monocerotid Meteor Shower produces less than one meteor per hour, though some years it is far more active, with over 1000 meteors per hour produced in 1925 and 1935, and high rates also recorded in 1985 and 1995. Should 2020 prove to be an active year, then visibility should be reasonably good, with the shower's peak occurring slightly before the first Lunar Quarter on 22 November 2020.
Meteor streams are thought to come from dust shed by comets as they come close to the Sun and their icy surfaces begin to evaporate away. Although the dust is separated from the comet, it continues to orbit the Sun on roughly the same orbital path, creating a visible meteor shower when the Earth crosses that path, and flecks of dust burn in the upper atmosphere, due to friction with the atmosphere.
The parent body of the Alpha Monocerotid Meteor Shower is unknown, but the irregular nature of the meteor show makes it likely that it is a Long Period Comet (i.e. a comet that visits the Inner Solar System less frequently than once every 200 years), and quite possibly one that has not yet been observed at all.
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