One of autumn's best opportunities to see brilliant "fireballs" arrives overnight Wednesday and Thursday (Nov. 4-5) during the Southern Taurid meteor shower.
Although the Southern Taurids are a minor meteor shower that produces only a handful of "shooting stars" each hour, it occasionally features exceptionally bright meteors called fireballs, which can briefly light up the night sky. According to NASA, fireballs are meteors at least as bright as Venus.
The Southern Taurids are active for several weeks in fall and peak Oct. 14, but the American Meteor Society expects the "fireball swarm component" to peak around Nov. 4-5.
Meteors can streak across any part of the sky, but for this meteor shower, they appear to radiate from the constellation Taurus, which will rise in the eastern sky as night falls and climb higher as the night progresses. That makes the hours around midnight a good time to look for shooting stars. However, unlike major meteor showers such ...
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