Orionids meteors shower Egypt's skies Friday

CAIRO - 20 October 2022: The annual meteor shower will reach its peak from midnight Friday, October 21, and during the hours before sunrise on Saturday, October 22.

 

This year the moon will be in the crescent phase, and will not appear until dawn, so its light will not affect the sighting of meteors until late in the evening in the skies of the Arab world.

 

And the Jeddah Astronomical Society revealed in a report, that meteors are expected to produce their best displays in the hours around 05:00 a.m. local time, when their radiation point is high in the sky.

 

The globe passes at this time of the year through the meteorites scattered along the orbit of Comet Halley, the source of these meteors, which strike the Earth's atmosphere and burn at an altitude of about 70 to 100 kilometers and appear to us in the form of meteors, but they have no effect on our planet.

 

Between 10 and 20 meteors can be seen per hour at their peak, of course there is always an element of potential surprise when it comes to meteor showers and it is up to field monitoring.

 

The Orionids meteors are active annually during the period from October 2 to November 7, and they are not one of the strong meteor showers, and they are not known to produce meteor storms. 

 

Orionids meteors are known as very fast meteors as they rush into the atmosphere at a speed of 66 kilometers per second, and these meteors are considered faint, but they compensate for this dimming by producing tails of ionized gas that last for a few seconds after the meteor itself disappears and sometimes the meteor can be exceptionally bright and fragment into parts.

 

The stars of Orion (Gemini) are considered one of the easiest constellations that can be identified, as they contain three stars on one line of medium brightness representing the belt of Orion and the brightest star in the Sirius sky located to the south of the stars of Orion.

 

It is worth noting that Comet Halley - the source of the Orionids meteors - will be its next approach to the Sun (perihelion) in July 2061.