If you’re an early riser with a spot of free time to look up in the sky, then tomorrow morning you have a good chance to enjoy the Arietids meteor shower.
Meteor showers occur when Earth, during its orbit around the sun, passes through the trail of debris left by a comet. When this happens, the particles create a light show as they burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
The Arietids is a daytime meteor shower that occurs every year in early June. It can involve up to 200 light streaks an hour, but because it’s at its most active when the sun’s up, many are impossible to spot.
But look up while it’s still dark in the hour before dawn during the shower’s peak on Tuesday morning and you’ll have a good chance of seeing a number of meteors streaking across the sky.
To give yourself the best chance of viewing the Arietids meteor shower, try to get to a place away from intrusive light pollution and where you can view a decent expanse of the sky.
When you find a suitable spot, cast your gaze toward the eastern horizon and wait patiently for some action in the still-dark predawn sky.
A useful tip for observing meteor showers is to make sure you get comfortable, as you definitely don’t want to start the day with a crick in your neck. So, if you have an outdoor chair that reclines. then take that with you, or simply lie on a blanket so that you can easily stare pretty much straight up.
If you can’t make Tuesday morning, or if cloud cover ruins any chance of peering toward space, you can try again throughout this week as the shower continues for another seven days or so. Just keep in mind that Tuesday is the peak, so there’ll be fewer meteors to spot after tomorrow.
Editors' Recommendations
- How to watch NASA launch a satellite into an experimental lunar orbit
- How astronauts on the ISS are growing crops without soil
- How to watch SpaceX launch a German radar satellite this morning
- ISS time-lapse shows how the sun sometimes doesn’t set
- How to watch NASA’s moon rocket head to launchpad tonight
