Ursid meteor shower
The sky on the Ursids' peak night from 50° north, at the hour their radiant near Kochab, in the Little Dipper stands highest, the view turned to it and ringed. Ursids 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 Ursids' 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 10 an hour; their source is Comet Tuttle (8P).
Ursids 2026
- Peakthe night of 22–23 Dec 2026, at up to 10 meteors an hour under a dark sky with the radiant overhead
- Moon96% lit at the peak (full Moon): a bright Moon that will hide all but the brightest meteors
- Nownot active yet: it starts around 17 Dec
- Radianthighest around 8 AM by the Sun’s clock, at or after dawn, so the best hours are the last before it gets light; 64° up at most from 50° north
- Next years22 Dec 2027 (Moon 25% lit), 22 Dec 2028 (Moon 33% 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 Ursids radiate from the Little Dipper, near its second-brightest star Kochab, so close to the north celestial pole that the radiant never sets for most of the northern hemisphere: the shower can be watched all night, though it is strongest before dawn, when the radiant is highest. They come from Comet Tuttle, which orbits the Sun every 13.6 years.
In most years they bring 5 to 10 an hour, slow at 33 km a second, on long nights around the December solstice, a week after the Geminids. Outbursts of 50 or more have come when the Earth met a denser trail, as in 1945 and 1986. Being so far north, the radiant never rises south of about 14° south.
Questions
Are the Ursids worth going out for?
For a keen observer with a clear, dark sky, yes: they are modest, but the long nights and a radiant that is up from dusk to dawn give a lot of hours to catch them, and a surprise outburst is possible. For a first shower, the Geminids a week before are the better choice.
Why can’t the southern hemisphere see the Ursids?
The radiant is 76° north of the celestial equator, near the pole star. South of about 14° south it never rises, and anywhere in the tropics it stays low on the northern horizon, so the shower belongs to Europe, North America and northern Asia.
When do the Ursids peak?
Around the 22nd of December, within a day of the solstice, when nights are longest in the north. The peak is short, so the list gives this year’s night; the page’s clock goes to the hour before dawn when Kochab stands highest.
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=50&shower=ursids
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 |
