{"id":775957,"date":"2026-05-05T23:22:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/775957\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T23:22:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:22:17","slug":"how-to-view-the-eta-aquarids-meteor-shower-that-peaks-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/775957\/","title":{"rendered":"How to view the Eta Aquarids meteor shower that peaks tonight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stargazers are in for another treat tonight into early Wednesday with the peak of the Eta Aquarids meteor shower. It comes just two weeks after the Lyrid meteor shower<\/a> dazzled the night sky.<\/p>\n

Celestial enthusiasts in the southern hemisphere tropics will get the chance to see around 50 meteors race across the night sky every hour. Those in the northern hemisphere can expect to see about 10 to 30 per hour just before dawn, according to the American Meteor Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Eta Aquarids will be the last major meteor shower until the middle of summer, when the Alpha Capricornids and the Southern Delta Aquarids overlap, with their peak viewing at the end of July.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udf20 What is a meteor shower?<\/p>\n

A meteor shower occurs when the Earth passes through dusty trails of debris left by a comet or other objects in space while orbiting the sun, according to NASA<\/a>. While many meteors, or \u201cshooting stars,\u201d can be seen per hour on any given night, a meteor shower occurs when this number increases substantially.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the Eta Aquarids come from comet 1P\/Halley. Every time Halley comes back to the inner solar system, it leaves debris, creating the Eta Aquarids and the Orionids, visible each year in May and October.<\/p>\n

It takes about 76 years for Halley to orbit the sun once, meaning the next time it will be in Earth\u2019s neighborhood is sometime in 2061.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udf0c What can I expect to see?\"An<\/p>\n

An Eta Aquarid meteor over the Sigiriya rock fortress in Dambulla, Sri Lanka, in May 2025.<\/p>\n

(Thilina Kaluthotage\/NurPhoto via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Described by the American Meteor Society<\/a> as being of strong strength when viewed from the southern tropics, the Eta Aquarids meteor shower typically produces up to 50 meteors per hour, according to Space.com<\/a>. When viewed from north of the equator, they usually only produce around 10 to 30 meteors per hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are swift meteors that produce a high percentage of persistent trains, but few fireballs,\u201d the American Meteor Society says.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc53 What\u2019s the best way to view the Eta Aquarids shower?<\/p>\n

No special equipment is needed to view the Eta Aquarids. While they will be visible in both the northern and southern hemispheres during the predawn hours of Wednesday morning, NASA<\/a> says the southern hemisphere is a preferred location to see them more clearly since they\u2019ll be higher up in the sky. In the northern hemisphere, the Eta Aquarids will seemingly \u201cskim the surface of the Earth at the horizon\u201d for viewers.<\/p>\n

This year, however, the moon will be 84% full, reducing the hourly meteor rate to less than 10 in the northern hemisphere, according to the American Meteor Society.<\/p>\n

NASA recommends that viewers find a location away from any light pollution, including city lights and streetlights, to see the Eta Aquarids. For the best view, lie flat on your back with your feet facing east. NASA says that after about half an hour of looking at the night sky, your eyes will adapt and you\u2019ll likely be able to see the meteors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stargazers are in for another treat tonight into early Wednesday with the peak of the Eta Aquarids meteor…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":775958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8],"tags":[17393,317981,19773,916,145082,159,317982,145086,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-775957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-american-meteor-society","tag-eta-aquarids","tag-meteor-shower","tag-nasa","tag-northern-hemisphere","tag-science","tag-southern-delta-aquarids","tag-southern-hemisphere","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116524545627600870","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}