Meteor showers occur when Earth’s orbit intersects a comet’s path, causing the rocky debris left behind by the comet to burn up as it enters Earth’s atmosphere. For this double meteor shower event, Earth will cross the orbits of comet 96P/Machholz and comet 169P/NEAT. The Southern Delta Aquariids will peak from July 29 to July 30, and the Alpha Capricornids will peak from July 30 to July 31.
According to Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society, the best time to view both showers is Wednesday night. The waning moon loses about 8% illumination each night, which affects the visibility of fainter meteors. On Monday, the moon will be about 34% full, and on Wednesday it will be 16% full, as per Nasa‘s Daily Moon Guide.
The double meteor shower will be most visible in the Southern Hemisphere, where the radiant or the apparent point from which the shower originates will be almost overhead. However, viewers in the Northern Hemisphere can also observe the meteor shower if they have a clear view of the southern horizon. Both meteor showers will continue until mid-August.
“Almost all meteor showers peak in the early morning hours between 2 and 4 am,” said Moskovitz. “So if you want to catch either one of these, your best chances of seeing meteors are to get to a dark site and do so after midnight.”Both showers are best viewed with the naked eye. For those interested in other skywatching events this year, a new pair of binoculars or a good backyard telescope could be useful.Meteor showers occur at regular intervals due to their predictable orbits around the sun. The intensity of these showers can vary annually, influenced by when comets release debris and the duration the debris has been in space. Predicting meteor showers is crucial for the safety of spacecraft and humans traveling in space, said Moskovitz, who leads the Lowell Observatory Cameras for All-Sky Meteor Surveillance (LO-CAMS), a network of cameras monitoring meteors.
At its peak, the Southern Delta Aquariids will display around 20 to 25 meteors per hour, compared to “background” meteor showers that typically show around five meteors per hour. “You really need to get to a dark site, away from lights and traffic, stay off your cell phones, let your eyes acclimate to the dark, and you may have a chance of seeing some of those faint objects,” Moskovitz said.
In contrast, the Alpha Capricornids are less frequent but often produce “bright fireballs with bigger meteor chunks coming in, burning up, and getting brighter, making for a more spectacular show,” Moskovitz explained. These bright meteors are composed of marble-sized particles, while the fainter meteors are usually grain-sized.