Stargazers will be treated to a meteor shower tomorrow as the Delta Aquariids light up the night sky.
The display is expected to peak in the early hours of Tuesday with up to 25 shooting stars an hour streaking across the sky.
The Delta Aquariids mark the start of the summer meteor season in the Northern Hemisphere.
Like with most meteor showers, the Delta Aquariids get their name from the constellation in the night sky that they appear to radiate from – the constellation of Aquarius near the bright star Delta Aquarii.
Between midnight and dawn offers skygazers the best chance to spot the shooting stars, especially if they look above the southern horizon.
The Delta Aquariids meteor shower will peak on Tuesday — providing the UK with a light show of up to 25 ‘shooting stars’ every hour. Pictured: a meteor from the Delta Aquariids shower streaks across the night sky above the Canary Island back in 2014
The display is expected to peak in the early hours of Tuesday with up to 25 shooting stars an hour streaking across the sky (file image)
The recurring shower, which takes its name in part from how it appears to come from the constellation of Aquarius (depicted above), can be seen from July 12 to August 23 each year
The meteors will be visible to the naked eye, in an area of clear dark sky with little to no light pollution.
With this year’s shower taking place a few days before a New Moon, conditions are fairly good.
There is still some uncertainty among experts regarding the comet responsible for producing the Delta Aquariid meteor shower.
But most recently a comet called Comet 96P/Machholz has been identified as the likely source.
As ice from the comet gets heated by the Sun small bits of rock and dust get loose, forming the trail of debris that produce the meteor shower.
The comet was discovered by Donald Machholz in 1986, and has an estimated diameter of four miles (6.4 kilometres) and takes just over five years to complete one orbit around the Sun.
The meteors will be visible to the naked eye in the UK, in an area of clear dark sky with little to no light pollution
A photograph of the southern Delta Aquariids from Sydney, Australia from July 2022
According to astronomers, the way to spot them is to lie on your back and look halfway between the horizon and directly above, and 45 degrees from Aquarius. Pictured: the location of Delta Aquarii, the third brightest star in Aquarius, relative to the Pegasus constellation
WHY DO METEORS MAKE A SOUND?
Meteors are fragments of space rock that enter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up as a result of the friction created when they pass through, appearing as bright streaks of light in the sky.
As well as light, this friction also creates sound, with some meteors creating a ‘sonic boom’ as they break the sound barrier, in a similar way to a fast-moving aircraft.
Since meteors can be over a hundred kilometres in altitude, and their sound waves travel much slower than the light they generate, the sonic boom is often not heard until many minutes after the flash is seen.
The boom will also only be loud enough to hear from Earth if the meteor is particularly large, enters the stratosphere below an altitude of about 30 miles (50 km) and explodes as a bolide, or fireball.
As well as the boom, some stargazers claim to have heard hissing and buzzing sounds at the same time as a meteor is seen.
This is because meteors also give off very low frequency radio waves, which travel at the speed of light.
These are inaudible, but can cause physical objects on the Earth’s surface to vibrate and produce a sound, which our ears may interpret as hissing.
Sometimes, stargazers are able to hear a meteor as it creates a ‘sonic boom’, in a similar way that a fast-moving aircraft does (stock image)
