Eta Aquariids Peak Over Arizona; Tau Herculids May Be Next

ARIZONA — There might still be time to glimpse some Eta Aquariids meteors in the predawn hours Friday morning as the meteor shower slowly comes to an and. But Arizonans who love a celestial show still have reasons to look up this month, including a total lunar eclipse and, possibly, the brief but intense Tau Herculids meteor shower.

The Eta Aquariids, which the American Meteor Society calls “swift meteors that produce a high percentage of persistent trains, but few fireballs,” have a broad peak, ending Friday morning. With clear skies, viewers can typically see 10 to 30 meteors per hour.

The forecasts for Phoenix and Tucson are both for clear skies Friday morning, with an overnight low of 68 degrees in Phoenix and 58 degrees in Tucson.

Through May 28 or so, don’t rule out seeing a few more Eta Aquariids meteors — or meteors that have no apparent source, because meteors fly on any given night, according to NASA. It’s only when several are seen in a short period that it’s called a meteor shower.

“Meteors aren’t uncommon,” Bill Cooke, who leads NASA’s Meteoroid Environmental Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, wrote in a blog on the agency’s website. “Earth is bombarded every day by millions of bits of interplanetary detritus speeding through our solar system."

If It Happens, Tau Herculids Will Be Intense

Although the Eta Aquariids are typically the last sky shooting star show until summer, 2022 could see a bonus meteor shower — the Tau Herculids, which will peak overnight May 30-31. EarthSky.org described the possible shower as “brief but intense.”

It’s not a sure thing. It depends on the speed at which debris from a fragmenting comet — 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, or SW3 — is traveling through space.

“This is going to be an all or nothing event,” Cooke wrote. “If the debris from SW3 was traveling more than 220 miles per hour when it separated from the comet, we might see a nice meteor shower. If the debris had slower ejection speeds, then nothing will make it to Earth and there will be no meteors from this comet.”

• Related: 2022 Guide To Meteor Showers, Supermoons, Eclipses

The comet, which orbits the sun every 5.4 years, was discovered in 1930. It was faint, and wasn’t seen again until the 1970s. Then, in 1995, astronomers noticed it was about 600 times brighter, going from “a faint smudge to being visible to the naked eye during its passage.”

That’s when astronomers noticed that SW3 has shattered into several pieces, littering its orbital trail with debris. The comet was in nearly 70 pieces by the time it passed our way in 2006, and it has continued to fragment since.

If the debris makes it to our atmosphere this year, it’s a special treat for North American skywatchers, who saw a more subdued version of the Eta Aquariids, which favor the Southern Hemisphere. Though the Tau Herculid meteors — if they make it — aren’t expected to be as bright, a moonless sky at the peak makes for ideal skywatching conditions.

Total Lunar Eclipse At Mid-Month

The moon will turn red with a total lunar eclipse — what’s called a blood moon — during the late evening hours of May 15 and early morning hours of May 16, depending on your time zone.

The lunar eclipse begins at 7:28 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on May 15 and will reach its maximum at 9:11 a.m. according to TimeandDate.com.

The May full moon is also known as the full flower moon.

Patch will have more about the both the possible Tau Herculids meteor shower and the eclipse in the weeks to come.