'Fireballs’ From 2 Meteor Showers Common In FL In November

FLORIDA — Stargazers in Florida have a decent chance of seeing “Halloween fireballs” as the Taurid meteor shower rambles throughout November and the Geminids begin building toward their storied peak in mid-December.

Halloween fireball sightings are fairly common from mid-October to mid-November, according to NASA. Researchers have long been intrigued about the Taurids, confirming in a new paper that the so-called “doomsday swarm” is hiding and harboring fewer large and potentially dangerous asteroids than previously thought — more about that in a bit.

If you plan to scan the skies over Florida for meteors and fireballs, the National Weather Service forecast through early next week calls for mostly clear to clear skies through Tuesday.

Shooting stars aren’t the only reason to look up in Florida in the coming weeks. November’s full moon on the 15th is the last of four consecutive supermoons. And with the sun at solar maximum in its 11-year cycle, the stunning northern lights may dance again over the Sunshine State.

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The Taurids are unique among shooting star shows because the meteors come from two separate streams — the first created by dust grains left behind by Asteroid 2004/TG10, and the second by debris left behind by Comet 2P/Encke. Together, they run from about Sept. 28-Dec 2.

Neither stream has a well-defined peak, but the Southern Taurids should be the most active Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 5-6 and the Northern Taurids on Nov. 11-12.

A ‘Doomsday Swarm’ With Hidden Asteroids?

Don’t judge the Taurids by the number of shooting stars — about five an hour under clear, dark skies — but by the shower’s reputation for fireballs. Occasionally, a “Taurid swarm,” sometimes called a “doomsday swarm,” occurs when Earth runs into a group of pebble-sized fragments from the origin comet that then burn up into the atmosphere.

Astronomers have long been intrigued by the area of the sky where the Taurids originate due to their potential to harbor hidden, dangerous asteroids. However, concerns about the doomsday swarm were downplayed in a recent study led by researchers at the University of Maryland and announced at the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences annual meeting on Oct. 7.

“We took advantage of a rare opportunity when this swarm of asteroids passed closer to Earth, allowing us to more efficiently search for objects that could pose a threat to our planet,” Quanzhi Ye, who supervised the project and is an assistant research scientist in the university’s Department of Astronomy, said in a news release. “Our findings suggest that the risk of being hit by a large asteroid in the Taurid swarm is much lower than we believed, which is great news for planetary defense.”

Before the study, researchers had speculated that the Taurid swarm contained a considerable number of large space rocks up to 62 miles wide. Large objects can cause regional damage if they were to impact Earth, such as the Chelyabinsk asteroid that hit Russia and injured more than 1,600 people in 2013. Even larger objects can cause extinction-level events, such as the large asteroid that killed the dinosaurs over 66 million years ago, the University of Maryland researchers said.

Only a handful of large asteroids, perhaps nine to 14, are hiding in the swarm, researchers determined.

“Judging from our findings, the parent object that originally created the swarm was probably closer to 10 kilometers in diameter rather than a massive 100-kilometer object,” Ye said. “While we still need to be vigilant about asteroid impacts, we can probably sleep better knowing these results.”

The Last Of The Supermoons

The last of four consecutive supermoons, the full beaver moon will reach peak illumination on the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 15.

A supermoon occurs when a full or new moon coincides with the moon's closest point in its orbit around Earth, known as perigee, according to NASA. At this closest point, a full moon can appear up to 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter.

• Related: 2024 Guide To Meteor Showers, Supermoons, More

November’s supermoon won’t be the brightest of the four. That distinction belonged to the October hunter’s moon, which was 222,055 miles from Earth when it reached perigee. The November full moon will be 224,853 miles from Earth.

The Geminids Up Next

Meteor experts say the Geminid meteor shower is hands-down the best in the heavens, producing 120 meteors at the peak. It runs from Nov. 19-Dec. 24, peaking on Dec. 13-14.

The bright, fast and yellowish meteors are produced as Earth passes through debris left behind by the asteroid 3200 Phaethon, discovered in 1982.