The Tau Herculids Meteor Shower is expected over North America tonight… maybe! NASA says this could produce up to 1,000 meteors per hour, making it officially a meteor storm, or nothing at all. Here’s what we understand.
Earth is passing thru the debris field of busted up comet 73P/Schwassman-Wachmann 3 (SW3), This is all a maybe because of timing and Earth may not pass thru the thickest part of the debris field as some are expecting.
There will be meteors and if we do get into the thick of it, astronomers say we could see 1,000+ meteors per hour, surpassing the threshold for a “meteor storm”… again, maybe. There are a couple of things on our side, it’s a new moon so the skies should be good and dark, but Herculids are slower moving than most meteors and aren’t as bright as most.
Move away from urban lights into an area as dark as possible. If we can avoid cloud cover you should be able to observe meteors from around 9 pm tonight to 5 am on Tuesday morning.
More at Space.com.
If you are unable to get out and observe catch the LIVE STREAM from the Virtual Telescope Project.