{"id":212716,"date":"2025-10-20T08:15:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T08:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/212716\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T08:15:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T08:15:08","slug":"orionid-meteor-shower-how-stargazers-can-get-the-best-views-in-australia-astronomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/212716\/","title":{"rendered":"Orionid meteor shower: how stargazers can get the best views in Australia | Astronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Early rising stargazers in Australia will be in prime position to catch a glimpse of the Orionid meteor shower, which will this week pass through our atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Those who tend to wake before dawn will have the best chance of seeing the shower. For those who miss it, there\u2019s still the biggest meteor event of the year yet to come \u2013 the Geminid meteor shower.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what you need to know about the Orionid meteor shower and where you can see it from around the country if you\u2019re up in time.<\/p>\n

What is the Orionid meteor shower? <\/p>\n

Jonti Horner, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland, says the Orionids are the result of the dust and debris left behind by Halley\u2019s comet.<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis dust and debris is spread out a bit in space and it means that essentially there is this giant tube of dust through the solar system and it\u2019s pretty wide now and it takes the Earth about a month to pass through it,\u201d Horner says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Earth reaches that location in our orbit, we will run into this dust and so we\u2019ll get the meteor shower. And that\u2019s what makes it an annual meteor shower.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s meteor shower will peak this week, on Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/p>\n

When can you see it in Australia?<\/p>\n

If you want to catch a glimpse of the Orionids, you\u2019ll need to set an alarm to make sure you\u2019re up in the early hours.<\/p>\n

For people in the Brisbane area, the radiant for the Orionids isn\u2019t rising until about 10.30pm at night.<\/p>\n

In Sydney, the Orionids shower isn’t appearing high in the sky until close to midnight, Horner says<\/p>\n

\"BloodBlood moon and lunar eclipse shines around the world \u2013 video<\/p>\n

He says the Orionids\u2019 radiant will be at its highest in the sky for about 30 minutes, from roughly 4-4.30am (AEDT).<\/p>\n

But the best chance of viewing it is about an hour before and after it is at its highest point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was getting up for them \u2026 I would look at setting my alarm for maybe 2.30am [3.30am AEDT] and watching through until about 4.30am [5.30am],\u201d Horner says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is when I would be looking to get the best view.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this time of night \u2013 even with the best conditions and clear skies \u2013 stargazers may only see about 10 to 15 meteors an hour, he says.<\/p>\n

Why do meteor showers happen?<\/p>\n

Horner says a meteor is simply a bit of dust and debris crashing into the Earth\u2019s atmosphere, at a speed between 12km and 72km a second.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see a shooting star, you\u2019re seeing something smaller than a grain of rice typically hitting the Earth\u2019s atmosphere at a very high speed and burning powerfully way overhead,\u201d Horner says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe solar system is littered with this kind of dust and debris, which means that you\u2019ve got meteors popping off all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

What else can stargazers look forward to?<\/p>\n

A bigger event is the Geminid meteor shower, which will peak on the night of 14 December.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Geminids are the best meteor shower of the year by far \u2013 and that\u2019s worldwide,\u201d Horner says. \u201cThey are slightly better for the northern hemisphere than the southern hemisphere, but they are much better than the Orionids.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are also at their best around 2am-3am local time but depending on where you are in the country, you can start seeing them a bit earlier in the evening.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says those who watch the Geminids event could see between 30 and 60 meteors an hour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early rising stargazers in Australia will be in prime position to catch a glimpse of the Orionid meteor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-212716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}