Stargazers can witness the Tau Herculids meteor shower in clear night skies

Different countries worldwide can witness the Tau Herculids meteor shower on the nights of 29th and 30th May 2022. The event is reported to be a meteor storm with 1000 shooting stars every hour. According to NASA, the meteor shower is an 'all or nothing event'.

The meteor would be visible from the Earth as our planet passes through the debris of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. The event can be seen across various parts of the USA, South America, the Caribbean and West Africa.

As per reports, the Tau Herculids meteor shower would originate from Bootes, a constellation. The meteor shower would radiate above the star Arcturus, the brightest star in the skies of the Northern Hemisphere. If you find the Big Dipper, you can locate Arcturus. Simply draw a straight line from the last two stars of Big Dipper's handle and away from its bowl. The first bright star that falls in the line would be Arcturus.


You can watch the meteor shower online in real-time. Astrophysicist Gianluca Masi from Ceccano, Italy, is leading the Virtual Telescope Project. The project would capture and provide views from all-sky cameras located in Arizona and Brazil. You can catch the event's live stream through the Virtual Telescope Project.

NASA's astronomer, Bill Cooke, has said that if the debris from Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 was travelling more than 354 kilometres per hour after separating from the comet, you might witness a good meteor shower. If, however, the debris ejects at lower speeds, it would not make it to Earth, and there would be no meteors from the comet.

In a guide, NASA wrote that if the debris from the comet hits the Earth this year, it will strike the atmosphere slowly at just 16 kilometres per second. This would mean fainter showers compared to those that belong to the eta Aquariids. However, stargazers across North America are excited this year because the Tau Herculid gradient is expected to be high in the night sky at the peak time of the forecasted shower.