Don’t miss the Draconid meteor shower, a celestial event that won’t take all night
A meteor streaks across the sky during the Draconids over the county of Northumberland in England in October 2021.
By Ashley Strickland, CNN
(CNN) — The Draconid meteor shower will briefly light up the sky Thursday night — and it won’t even keep onlookers out past midnight.
The shower is expected to peak at 9 p.m. ET Thursday, but depending on viewers’ location, meteors will be visible into the wee hours of Friday morning, according to EarthSky.
The Draconids are best seen from the Northern Hemisphere, but sky-gazers in the Southern Hemisphere might glimpse a few meteors by looking near the horizon just after darkness falls.
Fortunately, a waning crescent moon isn’t expected to be bright enough to obscure the shower, in which 10 meteors can streak across the sky per hour. The Draconid meteors move more slowly than those witnessed during other showers, clocking about one or two seconds of visibility rather than a fraction of a second.
Unlike most other meteor showers that peak early morning, the Draconids are best seen just after nightfall and throughout the evening hours because of the location of the shower’s radiant point — where the meteors appear to come from in the night sky.
The Draconids could bring a meteor storm
The shower gets its name because the meteors look like they arc from the direction of the constellation Draco the Dragon. Eltanin and Rastaban, stars that make up the head of the dragon, are in the far northern sky in October, according to EarthSky.
Meteor showers occur as our planet passes through debris trails left behind by comets and asteroids, which eject bits of rock and ice as they orbit the sun. The Draconids are the result of Earth intersecting with a trail from the comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, and occurs in October each year when the planet nears the comet’s orbit.
The Draconids are also referred to as the Giacobinids in honor of that comet’s discoverer, Michel Giacobini, who spotted the celestial object in 1900.
While the Draconid meteor shower is considered much smaller when compared with larger ones later this year, sky-gazers favor this celestial event due to the possibility of a meteor storm.
Meteor storms can happen when a comet’s debris is concentrated close to the comet, rather than spread out, as Earth passes through the trail, and can depend on how close the comet comes to our planet during its orbit around the sun. Hundreds or thousands of meteors can be visible per hour during a meteor storm.
The comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner completes its orbit of the sun about every seven years, with scientists reporting increased meteor activity in September 2018 when the comet came closest in its orbit to Earth. The comet also neared Earth in March 2025 and remains relatively close this year — which means that for this unpredictable shower, an outburst is always possible, according to EarthSky.
The best way to watch the meteor shower is to sit in a reclining lawn chair or lie on your back and look up at the sky with a wide view. No special equipment is needed, but if you want the best viewing conditions, it helps to be as far from artificial light as possible.
Upcoming meteor showers
There are more meteor showers to look forward to as the end of the year approaches. Here are the peak dates to glimpse these dazzling celestial events, according to the American Meteor Society.
- Orionids: October 21-22
- Southern Taurids: November 4-5
- Northern Taurids: November 11-12
- Leonids: November 16-17
- Geminids: December 13-14
- Ursids: December 21-22
The-CNN-Wire
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