The Draconid Meteors.

The Draconids are one of the most notable annual meteor showers, in some years producing several thousand meteors per hour (like most meteor showers the number of Draconids varies from year to year). The shower is visible between 6 and 10 October each year, and is expected to peak on Thursday 8 October 2020, with best viewing in the evening (this will be the same wherever you are on Earth), though visibility may be somewhat hampered this year, as the meteor shower peaks a week after the Full Moon on Thursday 1 October, so that the meteors may be obscured by the brightness of the Moon. The Draconids take their name from the constellation of Draconis, with the meteors appearing to radiate from the mouth of the Dragon, between the stars Eltanin and Rastaban. Since this constellation is very high in the northern sky, the Draconids are an almost exclusively Northern Hemisphere phenomenon, which sightings from south of the equator being quite rare.

 

The radiant point (point from which the meteors appear to radiate) of the Draconid Meteor Shower. PA.

Meteor showers are thought to be largely composed of material from the tails of comets. Comets are composed largely of ice (mostly water and carbon dioxide), and when they fall into the inner Solar System the outer layers of this boil away, forming a visible tail (which always points away from the Sun, not in the direction the comet is coming from, as our Earth-bound experience would lead us to expect). Particles of rock and dust from within the comet are freed by this melting (strictly sublimation, transforming directly from a solid to a gas due to the low pressure on it's surface) of the comet into the tail and continue to orbit in the same path as the comet, falling behind over time. 

 

The Earth passing through a stream of comet dust, resulting in a meteor shower. Not to scale. Astro Bob.

The Draconid Meteor Shower is caused by the Earth passing through the trail of the Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, and encountering dust from the tail of this comet (for this reason the shower is sometimes known as the 'Giacobinid Meteors'). The dust particles strike the atmosphere at speeds of over 200 000 km per hour, burning up in the upper atmosphere and producing a light show in the process. The name 21P/Giacobini-Zinner implies that the comet was the 21st Periodic Comet discovered (a Periodic Comet has an orbital period of less than 200 years) and that it was discovered by Michel Giacobini, who first observed the comet from the Nice Observatory in France in 1900, and Ernst Zinner who observed the comet from the Remeis Observatory in Bamberg, Germany, in 1913.

 

Image of 21P/Giacobini-Zinner captured by the Kitt Peak 0.9-m telescope on 31 October 1998. North is up with east to the left. NA Sharp/NASA/NOAO/AURA/NSF.

The Earth does not need to pass close to  21P/Giacobini-Zinner for the meteor shower to occur, it simply passes through a trail of dust from the comet's tail that is following the same orbital path. Comet  21P/Giacobini-Zinner itself visits the Inner Solar System once every 6.6 years, last doing so in 2018, when it reached about 58 434 00 km (0.39 AU) from Earth on 11 September. The comet has an eccentric orbit tilted at 31.9° to the plane of the Solar System, that takes it from 1.03 AU from the Sun (103% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 6.00 AU from the Sun (6 times as far from the Sun as the Earth,slightly outside the orbit of Jupiter). 

 

The calculated orbit and position on 6 October 2020 of Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner.  JPL Small Body Database.

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The Draconid Meteor Shower.

The Draconids are one of the most notable annual meteor showers, in some years producing several thousand meteors per hour (like most meteor showers the number of Draconids varies from year to year). The shower is expected to peak on Wednesday 9 October 2018, with best viewing in the evening (this will b e the same wherever you are on Earth), though visibility may be somewhat hampered this year, as the meteor shower peaks slightly before the Full Moon on Sunday 13 October, so that the meteors may be obscured by the brightness of the Moon. The Draconids take their name from the constellation of Draconis, with the meteors appearing to radiate from the mouth of the Dragon, between the stars Eltanin and Rastaban. Since this constellation is very high in the northern sky, the Draconids are an almost exclusively Northern Hemisphere phenomenon, which sightings from south of the equator being quite rare.

 The radiant point (point from which the meteors appear to radiate) of the Draconid Meteor Shower. AccuWeather.

The shower is caused by the Earth passing through the trail of the Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, and encountering dust from the tail of this comet (for this reason the shower is sometimes known as the 'Giacobinid Meteors'). The dust particles strike the atmosphere at speeds of over 200 000 km per hour, burning up in the upper atmosphere and producing a light show in the process. The name 21P/Giacobini-Zinner implies that the comet was the 21st Periodic Comet discovered (a Periodic Comet has an orbital period of less than 200 years) and that it was discovered by Michel Giacobini, who first observed the comet from the Nice Observatory in France in 1900, and Ernst Zinner who observed the comet from the Remeis Observatory in Bamberg, Germany, in 1913.

 Two-panel mosaic image of Commet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, taken from the Los Padres National Forest in California on 17 August 2019. Tom Masterson/Transient Astronomer/Flikr.

The Earth does not need to pass close to  21P/Giacobini-Zinner for the meteor shower to occur, it simply passes through a trail of dust from the comet's tail that is following the same orbital path. Comet  21P/Giacobini-Zinner itself visits the Inner Solar System once every 6.6 years, last doing so in 2018, when it reached about 58 434 00 km (0.39 AU) from Earth on 11 September. The comet has an eccentric orbit tilted at 31.9° to the plane of the Solar System, that takes it from 1.03 AU from the Sun (103% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 6.00 AU from the Sun (6 times as far from the Sun as the Earth,slightly outside the orbit of Jupiter). 

 

 The calculated orbit and position on 8 October 2019 of Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner. The Sky Live 3D Solar System Simulator.

 

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The Draconid Meteors

The Draconids are one of the most notable annual meteor showers, in some years producing several thousand meteors per hour (like most meteor showers the number of Draconids varies from year to year). The shower is expected to peak on Monday 8 October 2018, with best viewing in the evening (this will b e the same wherever you are on Earth), visibility should be particularly good this year, with peak meteor activity coming directly before the New Moon on Tuesday 9 October, so that the meteors will not be obscured by the brightness of the Moon. The Draconids take their name from the constellation of Draconis, with the meteors appearing to radiate from the mouth of the Dragon, between the stars Eltanin and Rastaban. Since this constellation is very high in the northern sky, the Draconids are an almost exclusively Northern Hemisphere phenomenon, which sightings from south of the equator being quite rare.

 The radiant point of the Draconid Meteor Shower. Space.com.

The shower is caused by the Earth passing through the trail of the Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, and encountering dust from the tail of this comet (for this reason the shower is sometimes known as the 'Giacobinid Meteors'). The dust particles strike the atmosphere at speeds of over 200 000 km per hour, burning up in the upper atmosphere and producing a light show in the process. The name 21P/Giacobini-Zinner implies that the comet was the 21st Periodic Comet discovered (a Periodic Comet has an orbital period of less than 200 years) and that it was discovered by Michel Giacobini, who first observed the comet from the Nice Observatory in France in 1900, and Ernst Zinner who observed the comet from the Remeis Observatory in Bamberg, Germany, in 1913.

 Image of 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, taken on 22 August 2018. Michael Jäger/Sky & Telescope.

The Earth does not need to pass close to  21P/Giacobini-Zinner for the meteor shower to occur, it simply passes through a trail of dust from the comet's tail that is following the same orbital path. Comet  21P/Giacobini-Zinner itself visits the Inner Solar System once every 6.6 years, last doing so in 2012, on an eccentric orbit tilted at 31.9° to the plane of the Solar System, that takes it from 1.03 AU from the Sun (103% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 6.00 AU from the Sun (6 times as far from the Sun as the Earth,slightly outside the orbit of Jupiter). The comet last visited the Inner Solar System in this year, reaching about 58 434 00 km  (0.39 AU) from Earth on 11 September.

 The calculated orbit and position on 7 October 2018 of Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner. The Sky Live 3D Solar System Simulator.

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The Draconid Meteor Shower.

The Draconids are one of the most notable annual meteor showers, in some years producing several thousand meteors per hour (like most meteor showers the number of Draconids varies from year to year). The shower is expected to peak on Saturday 7-Sunday 8 October 2017, with best viewing in the evenings on these dates this will b the same wherever you are on Earth), though visibility will be hampered somewhat by a bright Moon, with peak meteor activity coming directly after the Full Moon on Friday 6 October. The Draconids take their name from the constellation of Draconis, with the meteors appearing to radiate from the mouth of the Dragon, between the stars Eltanin and Rastaban. Since this constellation is very high in the northern sky, the Draconids are an almost exclusively Northern Hemisphere phenomenon, which sightings from south of the equator being quite rare.

The radiant point of the Draconid Meteor Shower. Planetary Society, India.

The shower is caused by the Earth passing through the trail of the Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, and encountering dust from the tail of this comet (for this reason the shower is sometimes known as the 'Giacobinid Meteors'). The dust particles strike the atmosphere at speeds of over 200 000 km per hour, burning up in the upper atmosphere and producing a light show in the process. The name 21P/Giacobini-Zinner implies that the comet was the 21st Periodic Comet discovered (a Periodic Comet has an orbital period of less than 200 years) and that it was discovered by Michel Giacobini, who first observed the comet from the Nice Observatory in France in 1900, and Ernst Zinner who observed the comet from the Remeis Observatory in Bamberg, Germany, in 1913.

Image of 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, taken from Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona on 31 October 1998. Nigel Sharp/NOAO/AURA/NSF.

The Earth does not need to pass close to  21P/Giacobini-Zinner for the meteor shower to occur, it simply passes through a trail of dust from the comet's tail that is following the same orbital path. Comet  21P/Giacobini-Zinner itself visits the Inner Solar System once every 6.6 years, last doing so in 2012, on an eccentric orbit tilted at 31.9° to the plane of the Solar System, that takes it from 1.03 AU from the Sun (103% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 6.00 AU from the Sun (6 times as far from the Sun as the Earth,slightly outside the orbit of Jupiter). The comet is next expected to visit the Inner Solar System in 2018, reaching about 58 434 00 km  (0.39 AU) from Earth on 11 September of that year.

 The calculated orbit and position on 6 October 2017 of Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner. The Sky Live 3D Solar System Simulator.

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