CAIRO - 21 October 2024: The annual Orionid meteor shower peaked at midnight and during the hours before sunrise on Monday, October 21.
It is considered one of the main meteors of the year.
The Jeddah Astronomical Society revealed in a report that coinciding with the peak of the Orionids, the moon will be in the waning gibbous phase, which will cause most of the faint meteors this year to be obscured, but a few bright meteors may be spotted.
The meteors produce their best shows at around 05:00 am on Monday morning local time when their radiant point is high in the sky towards the southern horizon.
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.
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