St. Louis stargazers are in for a treat thanks to a meteor shower that will be visible Monday evening into Tuesday morning.
The Eta Aquarid showers are visible around the globe and occur between mid-April and late May.
Stargazers can expect to see 10 to 15 meteors per hour. The best location to see the showers is in a place with fewer streetlights and a wide view of the sky, St. Louis Science Center James S. McDonnell Planetarium manager Will Snyder said.
“Even with this being one of the lesser meteor showers of the year, even with that 10 or 15, you stand the chance of getting a bright fireball,” Snyder said. “I never discount a meteor shower like this.”
Snyder said while some meteors may be spotted Monday evening, the best time to see the showers will be in the early morning as the moon is setting and the meteors are rising.
People in the southern hemisphere will have the best view of the showers. Snyder said that even though the showers will peak Tuesday morning, people will still see stray meteors throughout the rest of the month. A spokesperson for the St. Louis Science Center said the best views will depend on cloud coverage.
The Eta Aquarids are named after the constellation Aquarius, which is where the meteor emanates from. The showers occurs when ice and other debris fall from Halley’s Comet.
“They're a really cool way that we can be reminded of parts of our solar system that maybe we don't see on a nightly basis,” Snyder said. “To me that's a really cool thing, that as the Earth is orbiting the sun, we can be reminded of our path through the solar system when we get to look up and see just the stray meteor from an event like this one.”
