For the next few nights, Draco the Dragon will be spitting out “shooting stars,” also known as meteors. The Draconid shower is predicted to produce the greatest number of meteors on the night of October 7, 2012. Watch for them first thing at nightfall. Fortunately, the waning gibbous moon will provide moon-free evenings for meteor watching tonight and tomorrow night. Oftentimes, this hard-to-predict shower doesn’t offer much more than a handful of languid meteors per hour.
However, this shower produced major displays in 1933 and 1946 – with thousands of meteors per hour seen in those years. Even last year – in October 2011 – people around the globe saw an elevated number of Draconid meteors in the moonlight even. As of now, nobody is calling for the Draconid meteor shower to burst into storm in 2012. But you never know for sure with the Draconids, so it’s worth watching out for on the moonless evenings of October 7 and 8.
The forecast calls for the peak to occur at 2:00 Universal Time on October 8, 2012. For the central U.S. that translates to 10 p.m. Central Daylight Time on Sunday, October 7. If the prediction holds true, North America will get to watch the Draconids at their peak. But keep in mind that meteor showers are notorious for defying predictions, either surpassing or falling shy of expectation, so you never know for sure. Watch out if the Dragon awakes – you might see hundreds of meteors per hour.
If you live at middle and far northern latitudes, it’s well worth a try. Unlike many major showers, the radiant for the Draconids is highest up at nightfall, so watch for these meteors as soon as darkness falls.
Locate Dragon’s Eyes and radiant point for Draconid meteors
Most meteor showers are named for the constellation from which the meteors radiate on the sky’s dome. The Draconids, however, are sometimes also called the Giacobinids, to honor the man who first sighted the comet that spawned this meteor shower.
Michel Giacobini discovered this comet on December 20, 1900. Another sighting in 1913 added Zinner to the name of the comet, 21P Giacobini-Zinner. It is a periodic comet, which returns every 6 years and 4 months. Tracking this comet, and noting this October meteor shower, helped astronomers figure out how to predict meteor showers in 1915. The great Draconid/Giacobinid meteor storms occurred in 1933 and 1946. The comet returned in 1998 as well, and the Draconids picked up that year, but only to a rate of about 100 per hour.
Coming up in our lifetimes, in the year 2013 – approximately two years after the comet approaches perihelion (closest approach to the sun) – there might be another meteor storm around the time of this shower’s peak. Or there might not be.
Perhaps the rates could go up to hundreds of meteors per hour this evening. Or we might see only a handful of meteors per hour. Under normal conditions, when astronomers speak of a meteor shower peaking, it is similar to a weather forecaster saying, “The heaviest rain/snow is predicted for such-and-such hour.” In other words, the prediction might not be precise, since nature is always unpredictable to a degree. But the rate of the meteors is higher during the peak of a meteor shower than on any other night.
For tips on viewing meteor showers read this EarthSky article.
For a taste of history related to this shower, go to the Astronomy Abstract Service from the Smithsonian and NASA and find a 1934 article called “The Meteors from Giacobini’s Comet” by C.C. Wylie. It is an account of the famed meteor storm of 1933.
If you want to try your luck, lie down on a reclining chair with your feet pointing northward. Find as much open sky as possible. How many Draconid meteors will be seen in the moonfree skies these next few evenings?
