October 21, 2021
Today, the annual Orionid Meteor Shower reaches it’s peak. A meteor shower is a celestial event where meteors, or shooting stars, can be observed caused by streams of cosmic debris entering the Earth’s atmosphere. While usually a respectable meteor shower, the nearly full moon will make observing many meteors from the Orionids this year a challenge.
The Orionids are caused by debris from famed Halley’s Comet. In 1986, the European spacecraft Giotto became one of the first spacecraft ever to encounter and photograph the nucleus of a comet, passing and imaging Halley’s nucleus as it receded from the Sun. Credit: Halley Multicolor Camera Team, Giotto Project, ESA
