Miss the meteor shower over Charlotte? You don’t have to wait long to see the next one
If you happened to be looking up early Tuesday morning, you may have seen a few shooting stars from a meteor shower.
The Tau Herculids meteor shower peaked around 1 a.m., with 10 to 25 meteors seen streaking through the night sky per hour, according to EarthSky.org.
While the shower produced a “fine display,” the website says, it was not the “meteor storm” stargazers hoped for.
The meteors were created in 1995, during the breakup of the Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 comet, according to EarthSky.
Meteor showers often occur when Earth passes through debris left behind by a comet or asteroid, which is why they generally appear around the same time each year.
Here’s when the next meteor showers will happen, and tips on how to watch the shooting stars.
Here’s when the next meteor shower will pass through Charlotte
The Perseid meteor shower will be visible between Aug. 11 and 12, according to a meteor shower summary.
Here are some other meteor showers scheduled for this year:
Orionids: Oct. 20-21
Northern Taurids: Nov. 11-12
Leonids: Nov. 17-18
Geminids: Dec. 13-14
What to know about stargazing in Charlotte
Bill Cooke, the lead for the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama offered the following tips for watching meteor showers:
Get away from bright lights.
Give your eyes 30-45 minutes to adjust to the night sky.
Avoid looking at your phone, since the bright screen can hinder efforts to adjust your night vision.
Lie flat on your back so you can take in as much of the sky as you can.
Locate the radiant or the point in the sky where the meteors originate.
This story was originally published June 1, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
