CONNECTICUT — There’s an outside chance Connecticut stargazers could be treated to a meteor storm of hundreds of shooting stars an hour when the short-lived Draconids peak on Wednesday.
This week’s weather forecast for Hartford calls for showers Tuesday night into Wednesday, but clearing to a cloudless sky Wednesday night. Clear conditions will continue into the weekend, according to AccuWeather.
The Draconids, which run from Oct. 6-10, are sometimes called the Giacobinid meteor shower in honor of the French astronomer who discovered the comet that produces the shower.
In typical years, this sleepy shower offers only a smattering of meteors, but it can be spectacular.
In a new paper last week, an international team of scientists and astronomers, including those from NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, predicted that 2025 will be an outburst year, although different models show some variation in the timing and intensity.
The outburst is likely to occur during the daytime in North America and Europe, making viewing conditions most favorable in Asia.
The predictions come from the fact that Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner — which belongs to a group of objects known as Jupiter-family comets whose orbits are influenced by the gravity of Jupiter — has an orbital period of about 6.6 years.
It made its last perihelion — the point in its orbit when it makes its closest approach to the sun — on March 29, 2025. Seven years before, in 2018, when the comet came closer to Earth than it had in 72 years, the Draconids were especially spectacular, spitting out 150 to 160 shooting stars a minute.
An outburst would allow more of the meteors to shine through the light of the nearly full harvest supermoon. This shooting star show differs from others in that it peaks in the early evening. If an outburst occurs during daytime hours in North America as experts think it may, that could favor early evening viewing conditions.
Sky conditions will be more favorable when the Orionid meteor shower peaks Oct. 21-22. The shower is going on now and ends around Nov. 22.
Regarded as one of the most stunningly beautiful shooting star shows of the year, the Orionids produce about 23 meteors an hour.
The meteors are both bright and fast, entering Earth’s atmosphere at about 148,000 miles per hour. Meteors that fast can leave glowing trains — that is, incandescent bits of debris that can last several seconds or even minutes — and also fireballs.
You also may see meteors from the Taurid meteor shower, which consists of two separate streams and ramble along from about Oct. 13 – Dec 2.
Both streams are rich in fireballs, and are often responsible for increased numbers of fireball reports, according to the American Meteor Society. The South Taurids run from Oct. 13 to Nov. 27, and the North Taurids from Oct. 13 to Dec. 2.
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