Eta Aquariid meteor shower
The sky on the Eta Aquariids' peak night from 15° south, at the hour their radiant near the Water Jar in Aquarius stands highest, the view turned to it and ringed. Eta Aquariids can flash anywhere across that sky; traced backward, every one of them points to the ring.
Under this, worked out as the page is served: the Eta Aquariids' coming peak night and how much of the Moon is lit then, whether they're active now, the hour their radiant is highest, and their peaks in the years after. At best they give about 50 an hour; their source is Halley's Comet (1P/Halley).
Eta Aquariids 2027
- Peakthe night of 5–6 May 2027, at up to 50 meteors an hour under a dark sky with the radiant overhead
- Moon0% lit at the peak (new Moon): little moonlight in the way
- Nownot active yet: it starts around 19 Apr
- Radianthighest around 8 AM by the Sun’s clock, at or after dawn, so the best hours are the last before it gets light; 76° up at most from 15° south
- Next years5 May 2028 (Moon 85% lit), 5 May 2029 (Moon 47% lit)
Peaks from the Sun’s position at each (the International Meteor Organization’s calendar), worked out with astronomy-engine as this page was served.
How to read it
The Eta Aquariids are grains shed by Halley’s Comet on its many returns over the centuries, met by the Earth each May where the comet’s orbit passes close to ours. They hit the air head-on at about 66 km a second, among the fastest meteors there are, and many leave glowing trains that hang for a few seconds after the streak is gone.
The radiant, near the Y-shaped Water Jar asterism in Aquarius, rises only a couple of hours before dawn, so this is a shower of the last dark hours. From the tropics and the southern hemisphere it climbs higher before the sky brightens, and rates there reach 40 to 60 an hour; from mid-northern latitudes expect 10 to 20, many of them long earthgrazers skimming low across the sky.
Questions
Are the Eta Aquariids really from Halley’s Comet?
Yes. The comet itself last passed in 1986 and returns in 2061, but the dust it has left on past orbits is spread along its whole path. The Earth crosses that path twice a year: in May for the Eta Aquariids, and in October for the Orionids.
Can you see the Eta Aquariids from North America or Europe?
Yes, in smaller numbers. The radiant is barely up when dawn starts at mid-northern latitudes, so the hour before twilight is the whole show, but the few meteors it does send skim the upper air for a long way and can be spectacular.
How long does the Eta Aquariid peak last?
Several days: the stream is broad, so the nights from about the 4th to the 7th of May all give good rates, and a cloudy peak night is not the end of it. The page’s clock goes to the hour before dawn of the night nearest the exact peak.
Sources
The same view as a link: livex.earth/?clouds=0&radar=0&imerg=0&sats=off&launches=0&aurora=0&storms=0&severe=0&fires=0&quakes=0&lightning=0&events=0&snow=0&tsunami=0&view=sky&lat=-15&shower=eta-aquariids
Drag to look around, scroll to zoom. Settings live in the URL, so any view can be shared.
view | fixed · sunrel · orbit · moon · track |
track | what to follow: iss, tiangong, satgus (Mark Rober's Space Selfie satellite), launch, sunrise, moonrise |
lat, lon | viewer position (fixed) or offset from the subsolar point (sunrel) |
period, inc | orbit period (hours) and inclination (°) |
dist | viewer distance in Earth radii; 0 = orthographic |
mag, rot | size and rotation (°) |
wait | seconds between redraws (default 60) |
time, speed | ISO start time; clock multiplier |
clouds, lights, grid, markers, label | 0 or 1 |
borders | Country borders (Natural Earth), the disputed and undefined ones dashed, and once zoomed in, the countries’ names and the states’ and provinces’ lines, off by default (key B) |
terminator | The day–night line (Sun on the horizon), with the twilight band’s edges dashed: the Sun 6° up and 6° down, off by default (key Z) |
stars | 1, 0, or photo (dimmed like a camera exposed for sunlit Earth) |
sats | all (Starlink + named), featured, or 0 |
aurora, storms, fires, quakes | 0 hides that layer (keys A H F E) |
buoys, buoy | Buoys on the globe, off by default (key Shift+B); buoy=46026 opens that buoy’s window. Click a buoy to open it. |
meteors | The last day’s meteors (Global Meteor Network), recent fireballs and the coming close approaches (NASA/JPL), off by default (key Shift+M) |
iono | Ionosphere wash: tec electron content (GloTEC), drap HF radio absorption (D-RAP), or 0 (key Shift+I) |
lightning, events, snow | lightning, GDACS floods/wildfires/eruptions with NASA's flood map and USGS's US volcano alert levels, snow and ice (keys L D I) |
sst | Sea temperature: temp, anomaly (El Niño, marine heatwaves; 1 means this), or 0 (key O) |
lst | Land surface temperature (VIIRS, MODIS): auto the afternoon’s by day and the night’s by night (1 means this), day, night, or 0 (key Shift+K) |
soil | Soil moisture (SMAP L4): surface the top 5 cm (1 means this), root the root zone to 1 m, or 0 (key Shift+W) |
chl | Chlorophyll-a (MODIS Aqua, Terra), the last eight days: 1 or 0 (key Shift+O; off by default) |
aerosol | Aerosols: aod VIIRS optical depth (1 means this), index the OMPS UV aerosol index, smoke and dust, or 0 (key Shift+Y; off by default) |
waves, wavesrc | Wave height and direction (NOAA GFS-Wave, WAVEWATCH III) as trails that travel with the waves, coloured by height: 1 or 0 (off by default); folder holding its latest.json |
currents, currentsrc | Ocean surface currents (NASA OSCAR, a daily mean, two or three days behind) as trails carried by them, coloured by speed: 1 or 0 (off by default; key Q cycles waves → currents → both → off); folder holding its latest.json |
coral, coralsrc | Coral bleaching heat stress (NOAA Coral Reef Watch degree heating weeks), drawn within 35° of the equator: 1 or 0 (key Shift+R; off by default); folder holding its latest.json |
ash | volcanic ash: EUMETSAT's Ash RGB, and GDACS's eruptions in a window (key Shift+A; off by default) |
radar, smoke, tsunami | RainViewer radar, NOAA HMS smoke, NOAA tsunami alerts (keys R Y Shift+T) |
imagery | live GOES and MTG pictures by day, daily yesterday’s VIIRS when zoomed in, painted neither; with live or daily, the newest night’s lights when zoomed in (key Shift+P; the older truecolor=0/1 still works) |
severe | Severe weather: NWS warning polygons and the SPC day-1 outlook (US), MeteoAlarm's warnings (Europe) (key X) |
imerg | With the radar, satellite rain where there’s no radar: EUMETSAT H SAF (MTG) over Europe and Africa, NASA IMERG elsewhere (R’s middle step turns it off) |
relief | terrain lit by the real Sun, from NOAA ETOPO 2022 (key Shift+E); 0 shows NASA's fixed shaded relief |
reliefscale | terrain relief strength, 0.1–5 (default 1) |
isslive | NASA ISS telemetry panel: track (while tracking the ISS), 1 (always) or 0 (key Shift+L) |
isscam | 1 opens the camera in the ISS telemetry: the station from 120 m above, its solar arrays posed from the live telemetry, and the Earth below (the wheel zooms it, 30–120°) |
firehours | show fires detected within this many hours, 1–24 (default 12) |
launches | 0 hides launch mode (key U) |
bodies, bodyscale | Sun and Moon on/off; enlarge their discs (1 = true size) |
fps | 1 shows the frame-rate display (key ~) |
feeds | 1 shows the data-feeds dashboard: each source's last update and next check (key Shift+U) |
cloudsrc, satsrc | folders holding each latest.json |
