Orionid meteor shower peaks this week

If the night sky is clear over the next few days, look up: you might catch a meteor.

The Orionid meteor shower — which is active from Oct. 4 to Nov. 14 — peaks the night of Oct. 20-21.

While the Orionid meteor shower isn’t exactly the best of the year, it can be impressive.

READ MORE: WATCH – Meteor seen breaking up over Bangkok, Thailand — during the day

At its peak, the shower produces about 25 meteors an hour in a dark location. There have been years with higher rates, such as from 2006 to 2009 when it produced about 50 to 75 an hour.

We get meteors as we plow through leftover debris from comets. The small bits of dust and small rock burn up as they enter our atmosphere producing bright streaks. They rarely reach the ground.

And what’s the difference between a meteor, a meteorite and a meteroid?

If you want to try to catch a few meteors, the best thing to do is get to as dark a location as you can. Remember to bundle up as the nights are already quite chilly.

Of course, it goes without saying to look up when looking for meteors, but — as for every meteor shower, there’s an area where the meteors seem to originate, called the radiant.

All meteor showers get their names from the constellation in which their radiant resides. In this case, you can look towards Orion, the most prominent constellation in our winter sky.

Orion begins to rise in the east around midnight and then continues to rise higher in the south. You can find the radiant to the left of the star Betelgeuse, Orion’s left “shoulder.”

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Though the peak of the Orionids doesn’t happen until Tuesday/Wednesday, there’s still a chance you’ll catch a few meteors on Monday night and the rest of the week.

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