Orionids Meteor Shower

space · meteors · Halley's Comet · October

Pieces of Halley's Comet. The Orionids are actually tiny fragments left behind by Halley's Comet, one of the most famous comets in history. When Earth passes through the comet's trail, these fragments burn up in our atmosphere and create the meteor shower.

Appears in Orion. The meteors seem to come from the constellation Orion, which is how the shower got its name. If you look at the sky during the shower, the meteors all appear to radiate outward from that part of the sky.

October's light show. The Orionids happen every year in late October and usually last about one week. In great years, you might see 50 to 70 meteors streaking across the sky each hour.

Space dust falling. These aren't big rocks, but tiny pieces of cosmic dust and ice that glow as they zoom through Earth's air at incredible speeds. The friction heats them up so much that they shine brightly before burning away.