Draconid meteor shower to be visible

The Draconid meteor shower will be active on October 8-9.

Department of Astrophysics at Baku State University (BSU) informs that the source of this meteor shower is the 21P/Giacobini–Zinner comet.

Discovered in 1900 by French astronomer Michel Giacobini and re-observed in 1913 by German astronomer Ernst Zinner, this comet orbits the Sun every 6.6 years.

As the comet releases dust and gas during each orbit, which intersects Earth's orbit, we observe it as a meteor shower.

Unlike other meteor showers, Draconids move very slowly and leave bright, long-lasting trails across the sky. Typically, their activity is low, with around five meteors visible per hour.

The speed of Draconid meteors is quite slow, approximately 20 kilometers per hour.

However, throughout history, the Draconids have occasionally been marked by surprise bursts: for instance, observers recorded thousands of meteors per hour in 1926, 1933, 1946, and 2011.

This year, the peak activity of the Draconid meteor shower is expected to occur on the evening of October 8-9, particularly between 19:30 and 23:00.