The Orionids
Every mid- to late-October, we cross paths with a group of meteors called the Orionids. They seem to emanate from the same spot on our star map every year—right beside the club of the constellation Orion the Hunter, hence the name Orionids. But the meteors don’t actually come from that constellation; rather, they hail from a comet travelling along a vast loop around our sun, Halley’s Comet.Said comet orbits once every 75-76 years, travelling in a retrograde orbit, meaning the opposite way as the planets, leaving a vast complex of dust and debris in its wake, spread across outer space. Earth collides with this enormous dust loop both on the inbound and outbound legs of its journey.
Peak Orionid Season
Orionid meteors could actually be seen as early as Sept. 26 and will last as late as Nov. 22 this year. Yet their broad maximum will occur from Oct. 20-25, according to Almanac. They will reach their peak at 12:05 a.m. your local time, on the morning of Oct. 22, though the morning of Oct. 21 will present similar meteor yields. That’s less than two weeks away before they peak.
The Orionids’ Origin: The Radiant, The Constellation, and the Comet
You'll find the constellation Orion the Hunter ascending in the east around midnight during peak Orionid season. In the northeast of the constellation, near Orion’s club, the Orionids seem to radiate from a point between the ruddy, rust-colored bright star Betelgeuse and Gamma Geminorum (or Alhena). That point is called the Orionids’ radiant, yet they don’t actually emanate from between those two stars; it’s merely an optical effect, an illusion, similar to how train tracks seem to converge on the horizon but never actually meet.When trying to spot Orion’s meteors, you ought not look to the radiant point itself. Rather, try and take in the whole sky; they will shoot from the radiant and may appear anywhere above the horizon. Actually, the Orionids don’t hail from the constellation Orion itself. They come from the distant celestial traveler called Halley’s Comet.
What are comets? Basically, hunks of frozen gas and cosmic dust, often traveling along colossal orbits around the sun. The solid, packed center of a comet is called a nucleus. The last time Halley’s nucleus was seen from Earth with the unaided eye was in 1986. As it orbits once every 75-76 years, it won’t be back until 2061.
Most comets are named after their discoverers. But Halley’s wasn’t. Instead, it was christened after the astronomer who, in 1705, first accurately predicted its return. That man was Edmund Halley.
The Orionids’ parent comet extends far beyond its nucleus, to include a vast complex of debris spread across millions of miles throughout the system. Comets constantly shed their matter—space dust, frozen gas, and debris—as they move through the universe. That shedding intensifies as they near the sun, even causing them to glow with a bright greenish hue as their icy surfaces sublimate.
As for the question whether meteors follow some cosmic schedule, one could say, yes. They really do. The Earth and Halley’s Comet have planned their yearly rendezvous long ago.
