Orionid Meteors

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About Orionid Meteors

The 2012 Orionid meteor shower brightened the night skies over Earth. Please add your Orionid images to this group for all the world to enjoy! This group is moderated by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., as part of the 2012 "Up All Night" Web chat to observe the meteor shower:

"Earth is passing through a stream of debris from Halley's Comet, the source of the Orionids," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "Flakes of comet dust hitting the atmosphere should give us dozens of meteors per hour."

The best time to look is before sunrise on Sunday, Oct. 21. That's when Earth encounters the most dense part of Halley's debris stream. Observing is easy: Wake up a few hours before dawn, go outside and look up. No telescope is required to see Orionids shooting across the sky.

"Since 2006, the Orionids have been one of the best showers of the year, with counts in some years up to 60 or more meteors per hour," says Cooke.