Draconid Meteor Shower 2017: Unpredictable 'Shooting Star' Display Peaks This Weekend

[Judi Lynn]

By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | October 6, 2017 02:45pm ET

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https://img.purch.com/h/1400/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zcGFjZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA3MC82NTcvb3JpZ2luYWwvZHJhY29uaWQtbWV0ZW9yLXNob3dlci1tYXAuanBn

Sky map showing the Draconid meteor shower's "radiant" — the point from which the meteors seem to originate.
Credit: Starry Night Software

The annual Draconid meteor shower peaks this weekend, but don't get your hopes up for a spectacular sky show.

Even at their peak — which, this year, occurs Friday and Saturday (Oct. 7 and Oct. 8) — the Draconids are usually modest, generating just a few meteors per hour. Still, it's worth looking up, because the shower occasionally puts on an incredible display.

In 1933, for example, skywatchers in Europe saw up to 500 Draconids per minute, according to Space.com skywatching columnist Joe Rao. And observers throughout the Western United States saw thousands of Draconids per hour at the shower's peak in 1946, he added. [How to See the Best Meteor Showers of 2017]

The Draconids occur when Earth plows through the stream of debris shed over the eons by Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner. Dramatic outbursts like those of 1933 and 1946 — and lesser ones in 1926, 1952, 1985, 1998 and 2011 — seem "to occur only when the Earth passes just inside Comet Giacobini-Zinner's orbit shortly after the comet itself has gone by," Rao wrote.

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