Tips from NASA to view the shower:
» Find an area well away from the city or street lights.
» Bring a sleeping bag, blanket or lawn chair, and lie flat on your back.
» It will take about 30 minutes in the dark for your eyes to adapt. Be patient because the show will last until dawn.
If you’re in need of some luck, it’s a good time to wish upon a star.
Earth will cross paths with a meteor shower that could bring up to 30 shooting stars an hour, according to National Geographic.
Atlanta viewers will be able to see about 10 to 15 meteors per hour before dawn Thursday and Friday if the observer is away from city lights, NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke said.
That meteor event is the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, a product of the well-known Halley's Comet, which last stopped by this planet in 1986.
“The famous comet won’t be back until 2062, but we can still see sand-grain-size particles shed by this icy visitor burn up high above our heads,” National Geographic reported.
While the Southern Hemisphere is more likely to catch the meteor shower, mid-northern meteor watchers might be lucky enough to catch an earth-grazer, which travels horizontally across the sky before dawn, according to EarthSky.org.
Every year, Earth crosses the orbital path of Halley’s Comet in late April and May, so bits and pieces from Halley’s Comet ignite the sky with light.
The shower is active from April 19 to May 20.
“Earth plows most deeply into this stream of comet debris” Thursday and Friday, according to EarthSky.
The shower will be most visible during pre-dawn hours, between 3 and 4 a.m.
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