The Southern Taurid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight

Fireballs may be making appearances all over the U.S. sky tonight.

The Southern Taurid meteor shower is peaking overnight between Nov. 4 to Nov. 5. The Taurids are active annually, starting in September and ending in November. They’re known for comprising a particularly high number of brighter-than-average meteors, known as fireballs. 

This is one of the shower’s “swarm years,” when Earth passes through an area of particularly large debris from the meteors’ parent comet, 2P/Encke. Swarm years can bring double the amount of visible meteors per hour, and under ideal viewing conditions, about 10 meteors per hour would light up the sky tonight. However, the fireballs will be sharing the sky with the Super Beaver Moon—the biggest and brightest of the year—rising on Nov. 5. The brighter-than-usual lunar activity will likely wash out all but the most luminescent Taurids.

The yearly autumnal meteor shower includes both the Southern and Northern Taurids, but only the Southern faction will be peaking this week. The Northern Taurid’s will be most active on Nov. 11 into Nov. 12 and last until Dec. 12. Since they won’t be competing with a full moon, the Northern Taurid’s peak may give stargazers a more dazzling show than we can expect from their southern counterparts this week.

If you still want to try your luck at seeing shooting stars, choose a viewing location with as little light as possible, and make sure to give your eyes 30 minutes to adjust to the darkness before turning your gaze skyward. Look about 40 degrees above the constellation Taurus, the meteors’ radiant, or apparent point of origin. You can approximate degrees using a clenched fist held at arm’s length, which should correspond to about 10 degrees in the night sky. Your best bet is to search the sky in the pre-dawn hours of midnight until 5 a.m. on the morning of Nov. 5, when the moon will be low in the sky.

The next Southern Taurid swarm isn’t expected until November 2032.

Despite this year’s unfortunate full-moon timing of the Southern Taurid peak, stargazers need not despair: there will be plenty more chances to witness some fantastic astronomical activity this November. The Leonid meteor shower should give fans their shooting-star fix from Nov. 16 to Nov. 17, when up to 15 meteors per hour will be visible as a 9-percent-illuminated waning crescent moon provides optimally dark conditions. 

We’re also currently in a great year for Northern Lights viewing thanks to the sun’s solar maximum phase causing increased activity, so there’s no better time to get an aurora borealis trip on the calendar.