About Orionid meteor shower:
- It is an annual phenomenon that lights up the night sky every October.
- It is produced when Earth passes through the debris left behind by Halley's Comet, officially known as 1P/Halley.
- This comet, which orbits the sun approximately every 76 years, expels dust particles from its nucleus, creating a trail of debris in its path.
- Each year, our planet intercepts this path in late October, resulting in the Orionid meteor shower.
- Halley's Comet, measuring about five by nine miles in size, loses between three to ten feet of material on each passage through the inner solar system.
- The Orionids are viewable in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres during the hours after midnight.
What is a meteor?
- When meteoroids enter Earth’s atmosphere at high speed and burn up, the fireballs or “shooting stars” are called meteors.
- Meteor showers occur annually or at regular intervals as the Earth passes through the trail of dusty debris left by a comet.
- Meteor showers are usually named after a star or constellation that is close to where the meteors appear in the sky.
