Meteor experts forecasting hundreds of meteors will race the skies early tomorrow morning (November 22 GMT) in the incredibly rare event called the Unicorn meteor shower. Although the alpha Monocerotid meteor shower arrives annually between November 21 and November 23, it usually illuminates the sky with only a couple of meteors.
It is unofficially called the Unicorn meteor shower because it can be seen in the night sky near the unicorn constellation, also called Monoceros.
Unlike most meteor outbursts, which last for several hours, strong activity from the Alpha Monocerotids is over within an hour and easily missed
American Meteor Society
These meteors originate in a dust trail of a mysterious long-period comet.
This comet has been estimated to take more than 200 years to travel once around the Sun.
This mysterious comet’s trail of dust occasionally gets particularly close to our planet’s orbit.
The comet will consequently create a bonanza of meteors, NASA’s Ames Research Center scientist Dr Peter Jenniskens and the Finnish Fireball Network’s Esko Lyytinen, announced.
The NASA researchers confirmed conditions are tonight right for just such a bumper crop of meteors to arrive.
Because the dust trail lingers for a while near Earth’s orbit, such outbursts of meteors are at least possible for the next few centuries.
Even so, the comet’s trail only rarely gets close enough to Earth to create this spectacular display.
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The only other recorded outbursts took place in 1925, 1935, 1985 and 1995.
This year’s comet’s trail is close enough to create a meteor shower similar to the one in 1995, Dr Jenniskens and Mr Lyytinen confirmed.
Stargazers should hopefully – weather permitting – be able to glimpse from 100 to more than 1,000 meteors in the heavens.
The peak of the outburst will likely last for a 15 minute window but the shower could potentially last up to 40 minutes.
That meteors should start at 4.50am GMT (11.50pm ET) tonight, but observers should start watching for potential meteors starting at about 11:25 p.m. EST (4:50 GMT).
Those living in Western Europe, South America, eastern North America and northwestern Africa will enjoy the best views.
The moon is not particularly visible, making the view especially good.
Tonight’s crescent moon will shine relatively little light to drown out the spectacular sky show.
The experts added: ”There is a good chance to observe a short-lived outburst.
“Anyone who is going to try to observe should not be late at all.”
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