2015 Taurid Meteor Showers Peak Before Dawn Nov. 5 and Nov. 12

Summary: The 2015 Southern and Northern Taurid meteor showers peak before dawn on Thursday, Nov. 5, and Thursday, Nov. 12, respectively.

Taurid meteor shower, 1:23 a.m., Nov. 6, 2015, Joshua Tree, California: Channone Arif, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Southern and Northern Taurid meteor showers peak in 2015 from late night to before dawn on Thursday, Nov. 5, and Thursday, Nov. 12, respectively.

The moon’s phases on the showers’ peak dates offer ideal settings for viewing the Taurid meteor showers in 2015. In the early morning hours of the Southern peak on Nov. 5, the waning crescent moon only shines with 32 percent visibility. One week later, on Nov. 12, the darkness of a new moon offers no interference with the Northern peak.

Every seven years, the Taurids brighten their rather modest showers with fireballs, which are meteors with a magnitude of brightness more than that of Venus, the night sky’s second brightest natural object. With 2008 as a year of fireballs, 2015 is in line for Taurid fireballs, also known as Halloween fireballs for their proximity to Oct. 31.

The overlapping active periods of the Taurids’ two branches account for the meteor showers’ long duration across autumn in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere. The Northern Taurids occur usually from mid-October to early December, while the Southern Taurids appear from mid-September to late November. Maximums, spillovers of peaks onto preceding and succeeding days, are reached in early November by the Northern Taurids and from the end of October to early November by the Southern Taurids.

Pleiades below bull’s mane, upper left ~ ca. 1824 depiction of Taurus by British cartographer and engraver Sidney Hall (1788–1831): Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Characteristic of meteor showers, the Taurids receive their name from their radiant, the point in the sky from which their showers appear to radiate, from Earth’s perspective. Traced backward as they shoot slowly, at 17 miles per second (27 kilometers per second), across the sky, Taurid meteors seem to originate from Taurus the Bull, the constellation which houses red giant Aldebaran as its brightest star and the famous Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, star cluster.

Both Taurids have radiants south of the Pleiades. The two branches’ names reflect the positions of their radiants with respect to the ecliptic, the sun’s apparent path on the celestial sphere. The Northern Taurid radiant lies, along with the Pleiades, north of the ecliptic. The Southern Taurid radiant tracks to south of the ecliptic.

The Taurids appear annually for Earthlings as Earth passes through the debris shed by the showers’ parent body, Comet Encke, designated officially as 2P/Encke. With a completed orbit around the sun every 3.3 years, Encke ranks among periodic, or short-term, comets, which have orbital periods of less than 200 years.

Comets are often named for their discoverers. Comet Encke, however, honors German astronomer Johann Franz Encke (Sept. 23, 1791–Aug. 26, 1865), who calculated its orbit in 1819, after its 1818 appearance, rather than French astronomer Pierre François André Méchain (Aug. 16, 1744–Sept. 20, 1804), who spotted it in 1786. Comet Encke’s next return, accurately predicted by Johann Encke, was confirmed by German astronomer Carl Ludwig Christian Rümker at Parramatta Observatory in central Sydney, southeastern Australia, on June 2, 1922.

Earth passes through Comet Encke’s debris twice each year, once in summer and once in autumn. Because of the two encounters, the Northern and Southern Taurids share their parent comet with the Beta Taurids. Active as daylight showers in June and July, the Beta Taurids peak at the end of June.

Taurus and the Taurid meteor showers are visible in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Best viewing happens in the Northern Hemisphere, where Taurus rises high in the sky, reaching its highest elevation soon after midnight.

The possibility of a blaze of fireballs increases the attraction of the Taurid meteor showers this year.

Perhaps viewers, feeling rested with the extra hour of sleep from Sunday's time fallback, will set their alarms and get up to enjoy the Taurids on their peak nights, hopefully spotting fireballs as well as shooting stars.

Comet Encke rides along its pebbly debris trail (long diagonal line), which lights up during Taurid meteor showers; twin jets of material shoot away from the comet ~ image by Spitzer Space Telescope: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Minnesota, Public Domain, via NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Taurid meteor shower, 1:23 a.m., Nov. 6, 2015, Joshua Tree, California: Channone Arif, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taurid_Meteor_Shower_-_Joshua_Tree,_California_-_6_Nov._2015.jpg

Pleiades below bull’s mane, upper left ~ ca. 1824 depiction of Taurus by British cartographer and engraver Sidney Hall (1788 – 1831): Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sidney_Hall_-_Urania%27s_Mirror_-_Taurus.jpg

Comet Encke image by Spitzer Space Telescope: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Minnesota, Public Domain, via NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory @ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA07222

For further information:

Kronk, Gary W. "Taurids." Meteor Showers Online.
Available @ http://meteorshowersonline.com/showers/taurids.html

McClure, Bruce. "Keep watching for Taurid fireballs." EarthSky > Tonight. Nov. 4, 2015.
Available @ https://earthsky.org/tonight/south-taurid-meteor-shower-in-november

McClure, Bruce. "N. Taurid expected peak on November 11-12." EarthSky. Nov. 11, 2015.
Available @ http://earthsky.org/?p=136475