Tau Merculids meteor shower is expected to dazzle skywatchers today and tomorrow. For the unversed, a meteor shower is an astronomical event when the Earth passes through the trail of dusty debris left by a comet, says NASA. Almost all the material is vaporized in Earth's atmosphere, leaving a bright trail fondly called "shooting stars."
According to the information shared by NASA, Astronomers have predicted the possibility of a massive meteor shower to show up on May 30-31. And that has sparked a lot of excitement about what the Tau Herculids meteor shower is about and where and when to watch it. Well, it is expected that a broken comet called 73P/Schwassmann-wachmann, orSW3, will pass through the sky above earth on the night of May 30 into the early morning of May 31.
Astronomers are all set to gather all the information or observe any new developments. However, NASA has also said that, "sometimes events like this don't live up to expectations. It happened with the 2019 Alpha Monocerotid shower. And notably, some astronomers predict a dazzling display of Tau Herculids could be a "hit or miss."
Research published in the 2009 Spitzer observations said that some fragments of the comet are moving fast enough to give us a good show. NASA also stated that, "if the fragments from the comet were ejected with speeds greater than twice the normal speeds fast enough to reach Earth, we might get a meteor shower."
The meteor shower is expected to be seen in the dark skies in North America, it is said that the peak time to look at could be 1a.m. on the East coast and 10 p.m. on the west coast.
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