Two meteor showers will peak together overnight on Thursday, July 30, into Friday, July 31 — but skywatchers should expect a moonlit challenge rather than a dazzling display.

Both the Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids reach maximum activity just one night after July's full Buck Moon, which turns full on Wednesday, July 29. According to the American Meteor Society, the moon will still be 98% full during the peaks of those meteor showers, meaning bright moonlight will wash out many of the fainter "shooting stars."

This year, the Southern Delta Aquariids are active from July 12 to Aug. 23 and peak on the night of July 30-31. The meteor shower can result in about 25 shooting stars under ideal dark skies, but the full moon makes this year's timing far from perfect. The Alpha Capricornids, which are active from July 3 to Aug. 15 this year, offer around five meteors per hour on the same peak night. That's not many, but the Alpha Capricornid meteor shower is known for bright fireballs — space rocks that shine brightly, and sometimes colorfully, as they catch fire during the plunge through Earth’s atmosphere.

From North America, the moon will appear bright for much of the night around the meteor showers' peak. A nearly full moon does not stop meteors from occurring, but it brightens the sky enough to hide the faintest streaks. That's particularly important for the Southern Delta Aquariids, which can be faint and typically lack fireballs, according to the American Meteor Society. Even still, the overlapping showers make a great night for practicing your meteor shower photography or for taking pictures of the moon.

The best time to try watching will be between midnight and dawn, when the radiant — the point from which the meteors seem to emanate — of the Southern Delta Aquariids, the constellation Aquarius, is highest in the southern sky. Observers in the southern U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean will be better placed than those farther north because Aquarius climbs higher at lower latitudes.

For the best chance of seeing some shooting stars, keep the moon behind you or blocked by a building, tree or hill, and look toward the darkest part of the sky. Meteor showers are always best viewed with the naked eye.

If you're clouded out — or mooned out — during the July meteor peaks, don't worry, as you'll get a better opportunity in August. The Perseid meteor shower will peak overnight on Aug. 12-13, just after the Aug. 12 new moon, when skies will be moonless for the meteor shower's peak rate of 100 meteors per hour.

That same new moon will also cause a total solar eclipse to be visible along a narrow path through eastern Greenland, western Iceland and northern Spain. A partial solar eclipse will be seen from parts of Canada and the northeastern U.S. (Remember to protect your eyes with proper solar eclipse glasses at all times during the partial phases.)

The combination of a solar eclipse and the peak of a major meteor shower will make Aug. 12-13 potentially one of the most exciting days of the year for skywatchers.

Scientists have discovered the building blocks of life inside a meteorite that smashed through a New Jersey home two years ago. The space rock contains amino acids, carbon compounds and other "prebiotic" molecules similar to what may have helped kick-start life on our planet, a new study shows.

Scientists on the study team — led by Peter Jenniskens, a meteor astronomer with affiliations at the SETI Institute and NASA's Ames Research Center — praised the homeowner in Hillsborough, N.J., for quickly preserving the meteorite after it fell through the roof on July 16, 2024, despite the adverse circumstances. His actions included using disposable gloves and aluminum foil to place pieces of the meteorite fragments into glass jars.

"I was at home at the time, heard a loud crash and found a hole in the ceiling of the master bedroom," the homeowner, who was not named, said in a statement from the SETI Institute. "I smelled a strong, sulfur-like odor and saw many black fragments, along with debris and black dust that covered my bed, carpet and surrounding areas."

Those meteorite pieces were precious, the scientists said, and likely came from an ancient solar system planet that wasn't fully formed. "A forensic study of the fragments revealed that they contained preserved bits from near the surface of a small primitive asteroid where it experienced concentrated salty fluids — a process not previously known from this type of protoplanet world," Jenniskens said in the statement.

The study, published July 15 in the journal Science Advances, also traced how the meteorite got to the house. Earlier on July 16, 2024, at least 60 observers in New York, New Jersey and other Northeastern states spotted a meteor later confirmed to be traveling at 32,000 mph (51,500 km/h). At least 16 people in New York and New Jersey reported feeling the meteor's shock wave.

The rock broke apart in midair, with observer reports stopping when the meteor reached 22 miles (35 kilometers) in altitude, although Newark Liberty International Airport briefly tracked pebbles falling from the sky with Doppler weather radar after that. Fragments from only one meteorite ‪—‬ called Hillsborough, after the town where it crashed through the New Jersey home ‪—‬ were recovered.

The American Meteor Society used its cameras in Northford, Connecticut, and Douglassville, Pennsylvania — along with a doorbell camera in Wayne, New Jersey — to figure out the meteor's origin, Mike Hankey, an operations manager at the American Meteor Society and co-author of the study, said in the statement. "The path traced back to low in the asteroid belt."

Hillsborough is the second stony meteorite of its type ever spotted in a fall. Later analysis showed that the meteorite is full of ancient brines or salt. Scientists classified the meteorite as a type of stony space rock called a carbonaceous chondrite.

Scientists will compare the salt minerals to samples of asteroids Ryugu and Bennu, both of which contain ingredients of life and are samples of another carbonaceous chondrite type that formed earlier than Hillsborough. This analysis could help scientists further trace the origins of life-friendly chemistry in the early solar system.

A rare lunar meteorite that fell to Earth holds evidence of a previously unknown "impact event" that rocked the moon roughly 3.5 billion years ago, researchers say. Studying this ancient impact provides fresh insight into how the solar system was behaving in those early days — about the same time life on Earth began to appear.

In the new study, scientists looked at a lunar meteorite found in northwest Africa. The meteorite, called NWA 12593, contains information about three separate lunar impacts, but the researchers focused on the earliest of these crashes, the team reported in the journal Geology.

"On Earth, the first fossil evidence of life shows up around 3.5 billion years ago, meaning that life is emerging and evolving before then, " Carolyn Crow, first author of the study and a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a statement. "The question that we often have, even going back further, is what was the impact record when life was emerging? It is important for understanding how life is taking hold… The cadence of these catastrophic events is an important part of the equation."

In the study, the scientists used radiometric dating on the meteorite. This method charts the decay rate of radioactive materials in the sample, allowing the team to estimate the first impact at 3.5 billion years ago — roughly 1 billion years after the solar system formed.

The meteorite contained cubic zirconia, best known on Earth for its resemblance to diamond. But in the ancient meteorite, this material tells a different story: that the moon's surface became molten through the impact, because cubic zirconia forms only at extremely high temperatures. While the material dissipates at the ultracold temperatures found on the moon, the scientists found its presence through traces of its recrystallized products.

The impact occurred at roughly the same time as other huge impacts, both on Earth and on a very large asteroid called Vesta, that have been identified in independent research. To find three impacts on three different worlds so long ago is rare, because erosion and other processes tend to erase the evidence.

"It's not very common, which is why we're very excited about it," Crow said. "It's pretty rare to have all three records line up like this." The team expects that making deeper comparisons between the impacts will show more about how the solar system was changing 3.5 billion years ago, as the number of asteroids in the neighborhood diminished along with impacts.

Scientists often say the early solar system was a collection of gas and dust that gradually grew into smaller, comet-like and asteroid-like bodies. Over time, a subset of those bodies got even larger (through collisions and accretions) to become today's planets and moons.

The other two impacts on the meteorite were a breccia (rock melt) formed after the big collision 3.5 billion years ago and a third collision that sent the meteorite blasting off the moon and into an Earthbound trajectory.

How much do you know about the moon? Test your lunar smarts with our moon quiz!

Throughout its history, Earth has been bombarded with countless meteorites. About 80,000 have been found so far, but one specific group is exceedingly rare — and scientists now think they could be evidence for a long-dead proto-world that used to orbit the sun.

That rare group is the "angrites," which account for just 0.09% of all meteorites. They’re among the oldest known rocks in the solar system, forming within just a few million years after the solar system began 4.56 billion years ago. They also contain exceptionally low levels of silica (silicon dioxide), which is a key ingredient of most asteroids and rocky planets.

One angrite meteorite, dubbed NWA 12774, (pictured here in cross-polarized light) was discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2019. And a new study into this space rock suggests that it could be the first definitive evidence of a long-lost protoplanet that once existed in the early solar system. (NWA stands for Northwest Africa, a designation given to every meteorite found in this region.)

The findings, published July 1 in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, hint that this “planetary embryo” — if it existed — was made of angrite and may have been as big as the moon or even Mars. It’s thought to have orbited the sun before crashing into another celestial body and shattering into rubble billions of years ago; cue angrite meteorites falling to Earth.

In addition to its low silica content, NWA 12774 contains clinopyroxene, a mineral commonly found in Earth’s crust and mantle. This clinopyroxene is also unusually rich in aluminum, indicating that it formed under extremely high pressure — possibly a high-energy collision.

Such pressures could not have existed inside a small asteroid, hinting that the parent body of the angrites must have had a radius of at least 621 miles (1,000 kilometers), the researchers wrote. The sharp edges on NWA 12774 further suggest it formed near the surface, implying the parent body was even larger — with a radius of up to 1,118 miles (1,800 km). For comparison, Earth’s moon has a radius of 1,080 miles (1,737 km), and Mars has 2,106 miles (3,390 km).

“It’s incredible to think there was once [another] world this large,” study first author Aaron Bell, a petrologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a statement. “We only know it existed because a few fragments of it happened to land on Earth. These meteorites preserved evidence of a completely different pathway through which early planets developed.”

Due to the lack of silica in the angrites, scientists had previously theorized that these meteorites originated from small asteroids. But the new findings challenge that view.

If they did originate from a protoplanet, then the world that could have formed from this "embryo" would have likely looked much different than the rocky planets we see today.

“The materials that formed the angrite parent body are fundamentally different from the ingredients of Earth and Mars,” said Bell. “It points to a distinct and separate evolutionary path in planetary formation in the early history of our solar system.”

It is unclear exactly what happened to the lost protoplanet. However, the researchers speculate that some of its fragments may have become the building blocks of other terrestrial planets, including Earth.

See more Space Photos of the Week

NASA has confirmed that a bright fireball meteor exploded in the sky over New England on Saturday (May 30), releasing the equivalent energy of about 230 tons of TNT and generating a sonic boom heard across multiple U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.

The meteor was relatively small — about 5 feet (1.6 meters) in diameter, NASA wrote in a statement on X. However, it faced incredible friction while tumbling through the atmosphere at about 42,000 mph (67,000 kilometers per hour). The meteor broke the sound barrier as it split apart roughly 31 miles (50 km) over Earth, raining debris onto Cape Cod, according to NASA.

No injuries or property damage were reported in connection to the fireball. But onlookers in several northeastern states said they heard a loud boom and felt buildings shake as the meteor exploded around 2:06 p.m. EDT, according to The Guardian.

NASA estimates that the meteor had a mass of about 5.6 metric tons before it fragmented. Meteors that small are incredibly hard to track in space, NASA noted in a separate statement on X. That said, they also are highly unlikely to survive the intense heat and pressure as they fall through the atmosphere, and they thus pose no serious risk of damage to cities.

Far more dangerous are large, near-Earth asteroids measuring more than 460 feet (140 m) in diameter. Sometimes dubbed "city-killers," these large space rocks could survive the plunge through the atmosphere and cause massive damage if they were to fall onto a populated area.

They are also much easier to track than small asteroids; NASA keeps tabs on more than 40,000 large asteroids in our planet’s vicinity at all times. Several thousand still remain to be discovered, NASA estimates suggest, but next-generation asteroid tracking probes are poised to close this gap in the next decade.

Saturday's fireball is one of many that have been spotted in recent months. On May 25, cameras recorded a dazzling green fireball plummeting through the sky behind the erupting Mount Mayon volcano in the Philippines. On March 21, a cannonball-size meteor chunk crashed through the roof of a Texas family's home, causing damage but no injuries. And just days before that, a 6-foot-wide (1.8 m) fireball erupted over Ohio, triggering a powerful sonic boom.

Stunning new footage shows a bright-green "fireball" meteor exploding in the skies over an erupting volcano in the Philippines. Initial reports suggested that the falling space rock may have struck the mountain's fiery slopes — however, experts have confirmed that this did not actually happen.

The "visually striking" fireball was spotted in the skies above Mount Mayon, located within the province of Albay on the island of Luzon in the central Philippines, at 10:33 p.m. local time (10:33 a.m. EDT) Sunday (May 25), according to the Philippine Space Agency.

Two livestreams monitoring Mayon's ongoing eruption captured the bright flash, which lasted just over a second. The volcano, which stands at 8,081 feet (2,463 meters) above sea level, began erupting in early January, according to the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program.

The first video (above), captured by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS), shows the event in black and white, with a bright flash occurring near the mountain's summit, which is illuminated by glowing lava.

The second video (below), captured in full color by livestream specialists at afarTV, reveals the red glow of the oozing magma, as well as the emerald light of the streaking meteor. If you watch until the end, you may see a small light rising from near the meteor's trail; this is believed to be the light from a satellite and not related to the meteor, according to afarTV.

PHIVOLCS representatives initially posted that their footage showed "a meteor striking the [volcano's] northern slopes," which sparked some misleading viral videos on social media.

However, an update to the first post later clarified that "our review of seismic, infrasound and additional camera footage around the volcano indicate that the meteor disintegrated while in the atmosphere and did not strike the slopes of Mayon."

Some estimates suggest that if the meteor had struck Mayon immediately after it lit up, it could have impacted with a force equivalent to 7,500 tons (6,800 metric tons) of dynamite, according to the Philippine Information Agency. If accurate, this likely would have triggered sizable rockfalls that would have been picked up by earthquake sensors around the volcano, experts said.

Even without an impact, the dueling displays of fire in the sky are a remarkable coincidence.

"Fireball" meteors

Fireball meteors occur when asteroids survive reentry into Earth's atmosphere but then burn up due to high friction with the air.

"As [fireballs] plunge through the atmosphere at extreme speeds, friction heats them so intensely that they vaporize," Philippine Space Agency representatives wrote. "This heat also ionizes the air molecules around them, creating the bright, glowing streak we see as 'shooting stars.'" This usually happens between 37 and 62 miles (60 to 100 kilometers) above Earth's surface, they added.

In this case, similar previous observations suggest that the green hue of the fireball was likely due to a high concentration of nickel within the asteroid.

Some larger fragments of these exploding space rocks can survive to reach the ground, becoming meteorites, which can help scientists learn more about the solar system's formation.

On extremely rare occasions, fragments can even strike people's property, as recently happened in Texas, when a cannonball-size fireball fragment smashed through the roof of a Houston home. That impact was one of a series of recent incidents across the U.S., which included a rare daytime fireball that triggered a massive sonic boom over Ohio.

The night sky is set to deliver one of spring's most anticipated celestial events as the Lyrid meteor shower returns this week.

One of the oldest recorded meteor showers, the Lyrids peak Wednesday (April 22), offering stargazers a rare treat: a chance to witness "shooting stars" — and possibly bright "fireballs" — in dark, moonless skies.

The Lyrids officially run from April 14 through April 30, but their activity will peak in intensity during daylight on April 22 in North America and Europe, according to the American Meteor Society, when around 10 to 20 meteors per hour are expected. That creates two opportunities to catch the Lyrids: the predawn and post-sunset hours of April 22. The most favorable conditions are expected in the early morning hours, particularly around 5 a.m., when the radiant point — located in the constellation Lyra — rises higher in the sky.

Astronomical timing is working in favor of skywatchers this month. The new moon occurs on April 17, so it will still be a crescent by the time the Lyrids peak on April 22. That means the moon will be out of the sky before sunrise that day. Although it will be in the sky after dark later that day, the moon will set in the western sky as Lyra rises in the east, so it won't interfere.

While the Lyrid meteor shower's rate of "shooting stars" doesn't compare to more intense meteor showers like August's Perseids and December's Geminids, the Lyrids are known for their fast and bright "fireball" meteors that leave a persistent train, as well as for occasional bursts of activity ‪—‬ as many as 100 Lyrid meteors were reported per hour in 1803, 1922, 1945 and 1982, according to NASA. However, such outbursts are almost impossible to predict.

The Lyrids are the result of dust and debris left in the inner solar system by Comet C/1861 G1 (Thatcher), which orbits the sun every 415.5 years. When Earth passes through the comet's debris field each year, it causes meteors to burn up in our planet's atmosphere, giving the impression of "shooting stars" moving across the night sky. Comet Thatcher was last in the inner solar system in 1861, according to NASA. It isn’t due to return until around 2276.

For the best chance of seeing Lyrid meteors, check the weather forecast and a light pollution map for a location away from city lights. Allow your eyes to adjust to the darkness, and remain patient, as meteors can appear unpredictably in any part of the sky.

Meteor showers are best seen with the naked eye, but you’ll need some special gear if you want to photograph them.

A photographer snapped a bright-green fireball streaking across the starry sky above an iconic castle and famous Viking raid site in northeast England, after a meteor spectacularly broke apart upon entering Earth's atmosphere.

On Monday (April 13), shortly after midnight local time, a meteor exploded above the North Sea, off the east coast of England. The space rock, which was traveling around 20,000 mph (32,000 km/h), was on the small side, likely weighing around 0.4 ounces (12 grams), according to the BBC ‪—‬ but it made a big impression.

At least 230 people — from across the U.K., as well as parts of Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany — reported seeing the fireball to the American Meteor Society, a nonprofit that tracks global meteor sightings. The streaking light was also captured by multiple doorbell cameras (see below) and lasted up to seven seconds, according to witness reports.

Photographer Ian Sproat saw the fireball from Lindisfarne, also known as "Holy Island" — a small landmass off the coast of Northumberland that gets cut off from the mainland at high tide. This was the site of a brutal Viking raid in 793, in which attackers ransacked a monastery and killed or enslaved many of the Christian monks who lived there.

Sproat and his friends were attempting to photograph the starry band of the Milky Way stretching over Lindisfarn Castle (built in the 16th century, long after the historic raid), when the fireball blazed overhead, allowing him to capture a time-lapse image of the meteor.

"We all screamed when it happened," Sproat told Spaceweather.com. "I was so excited!"

"Fireball season"

Fireball meteors occur when falling space rocks suddenly split apart from the strain of friction with the atmosphere, releasing energy in the form of bright light. They can have multiple potential hues, based on the chemical composition of the rock itself. In this case, the meteor's green glow is likely the result of magnesium and nickel, according to Spaceweather.com.

Occasionally, fragments of these exploding space rocks survive to reach the ground and become meteorites. However, even if small pieces of the latest meteor remained intact (which is unlikely), they would have landed in the ocean.

Some fireballs also trigger loud sonic booms that can be heard for miles around, but no such noise was reported during the latest event.

The emerald explosion Monday is one of several similar events seen across the globe in recent months, some of which have sent space rocks crashing through the roofs of some people's houses. March was particularly eventful: There were at least 10 major fireballs in the U.S. last month, which is the highest total for that month since 2012, according to an X post from AccuWeather.com. This included a cannonball-size meteor crashing through a roof in Texas, and a rare daytime eruption over Ohio.

A bright fireball also exploded over Europe last month and showered a German town with meteorites, some of which also punched a football-size hole through the roof of a house.

It is not uncommon to see more fireballs this time of year. The number of fireballs between February and April, also known as "fireball season," can rise by between 10% and 30% compared with the rest of the year, according to NASA. This is likely due to Earth's position relative to the sun and the rest of the solar system.

However, researchers are still not entirely sure how or why this happens. (A similar trend likely occurs in the Southern Hemisphere between September and November, but this is harder to prove because there are fewer people there to witness the fireballs.)

Across the Earth, every night, thousands of automated stargazers are waiting to take pictures of shooting stars. I am one of the scientists who study these meteors.

Most movies and news alerts focus on large asteroids that could destroy the Earth. And your phones notifies you every few months that an object nine washing machines wide is going to just narrowly skim past. However, the small dust and rubble that enter our atmosphere daily tell an equally interesting story.

My planetary science colleagues and I use camera observations of the night sky to better understand dust, car-sized asteroids and debris from comets in our solar system.

In a study published in March 2026, I searched through millions of meteor observations collected by all-sky camera networks based in Canada, Japan, California and Europe and found a small, recently formed cluster. The 282 meteors associated with this cluster tell the story of an asteroid that got a little too close to the sun.

Meteor formation

When a sand-sized crumb of space rock hits our atmosphere, it heats up almost instantly, vaporizing its surface layer and turning it into an electrically charged gas. The whole fragment starts to glow — this is what we call a meteor. If the object is larger, like a boulder, and brighter, it's called a bolide or a fireball. On average, these objects hit our atmosphere going over 15 miles per second. For small dust or sand-sized objects, the whole process lasts only a fraction of a second before they completely disappear.

Most of these sand-sized fragments in the solar system originate from comets — cold, icy objects from the outer reaches of the solar system. As comets pass by the sun, their icy components turn to gas, releasing tons of dust. This is why comets are often called "dirty snowballs" and appear fuzzy in telescopic images.

Asteroids, on the other hand, are leftovers from the early solar system that formed closer to the sun. They are dry and rocky, and do not have the same ices that give comets their characteristic tails.

What does it mean to be active?

Astronomers call an asteroid or comet "active" when it sheds dust, gas or larger fragments. This activity is caused by some external force on the object in space, like heat from the sun, a small impact, or when asteroids spin too fast and fly apart.

Understanding and identifying activity helps scientists better understand how these objects change over time.

For comets, sublimation of ices — when solid ice turns directly into gas, skipping the liquid phase — is the primary culprit. However, for asteroids, the reason for activity can vary greatly.

For example, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, which launched into space to study an asteroid named Bennu, saw activity from its surface, with heat stress and small impacts among the leading explanations.

Other sources for asteroid activity include breakup when an asteroid spins too fast, tidal forces ripping apart asteroids during close encounters with a planet, or gas release.

Researchers most commonly search for activity using telescopes. Astronomers can look for a "tail" or fuzziness around the object. This tail is a clear sign that there is gas and dust around the body. But there is another way to search for activity — meteor showers.

Finding hidden asteroids via meteor showers

The most famous active asteroid is 3200 Phaethon. It is the parent body of the Geminid meteor shower that occurs every year in mid-December. During past close approaches with the sun, Phaethon released vast amounts of dust and larger fragments. These morsels of Phaethon have spread out along its entire orbit over time, leading to the present Geminid meteor stream.

Each meteor shower we observe occurs when the Earth passes through one of these debris streams. So if astronomers can detect meteor showers, they can also be used to find active objects in space.

At first, debris shed by an asteroid or comet travels closely together. Imagine squeezing a single drop of food dye into a moving stream of water: Initially, the dye stays in a tight, concentrated cloud. But as it flows, the water's swirling currents pull at the dye, causing it to spread out and fade.

In space, the gravitational tugs from passing planets act like those currents. They pull on the individual meteor fragments in slightly different ways, causing the once-tight stream to gradually drift apart until it completely dilutes into the background dust of our solar system.

The discovery of a rock-comet

In a study published in March 2026 in the Astrophysical Journal, I used millions of observations of meteors to search for recent, unknown activity from asteroids near the Earth. I found one clear cluster of 282 meteors that stood out.

What makes this discovery so exciting is that we are essentially witnessing a hidden asteroid being baked to bits. This newly confirmed meteor stream follows an extreme orbit that plunges almost five times closer to the Sun than Earth does.

Based on how these meteors break apart when they hit our atmosphere, we can tell they are moderately fragile, but tougher than stuff from comets. This finding tells us that intense solar heat is literally cracking the asteroid’s surface, baking out trapped gases and causing it to crumble. This is likely a major source of past Phaethon activity and the main reason the meteorites on Earth are so diverse.

The search for the source

Why does finding a hidden, crumbling asteroid matter? Meteor observations act as a uniquely sensitive probe that lets us study objects that are completely invisible to traditional telescopes.

Beyond solving astronomical mysteries, analyzing this debris helps us understand the physical evolution of asteroids and comets in our solar system. More importantly, it reveals hidden populations of near-Earth asteroids, which is vital information for planetary defense.

The new meteor shower's parent asteroid remains elusive. However, NASA's NEO Surveyor mission, launching in 2027, offers a promising solution. This space telescope, dedicated to planetary defense and the discovery of dark, hazardous, sun-approaching asteroids, will be the ideal tool for searching for the showe's origin.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A family in Houston is counting their lucky stars that no one was hurt after a cantaloupe-size meteorite smashed through the roof of their home and ricocheted around an empty bedroom. The space rock is most likely a fragment of a meteor that witnesses saw breaking apart with a bang in the bright-blue Texas sky.

The exploding space rock is one of several other "fireballs" that have been spotted streaking across the U.S. over the past few days. These unusually frequent light shows are the result of a peculiar trend that scientists still don't fully understand.

On Saturday (March 21) around 5:50 p.m. EDT (4:40 p.m. local time), a 3-foot-wide (0.9 meter) asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere at more than 35,000 mph (56,300 km/h) and swiftly broke apart due to friction with the air, creating a sonic boom and a bright flash that lasted several seconds, according to a NASA report.

At least 180 people reported seeing the streaking light, which occurred roughly 29 miles (47 kilometers) above Houston, or hearing the explosion, which had the equivalent force of around 26 tons of TNT, according to the American Meteor Society. Simulations later revealed that multiple meteor fragments likely reached the ground in the northern part of the city.

Local news stations later reported that one of these fragments had crashed into a house in the Spring area of Ohio. Photos and video show that the space rock smashed through the roof and bounced off the floor and back onto the ceiling, before finally coming to rest next to a TV. Homeowner Sherrie James reported it to the local fire department, which initially told her it may be a piece of an airplane (before the fireball had become widely known). But upon closer inspection, it became clear that it was a rock.

James told KHOU 11 that she initially heard a "loud bang" from the adjoining room and, after finding the hole, was convinced that it "looked like a meteor piece." She was initially angry about the damage but was then "very excited … but also a little scared," she added.

James joked that she was a big sci-fi fan and would definitely be keeping the meteorite. However, scientists will likely want to borrow and study the space rock to see what it can tell them about the wider solar system.

This story is reminiscent of a near-identical incident that occurred in Europe earlier this month, when the fragment of a bright fireball punched a football-size hole through the roof and into the bedroom of a house in a small German town. Several other buildings are also believed to have been impacted by the debris from that fireball.

Great balls of fire!

Fireballs ‪—‬ which occur when hefty meteorites break apart in the atmosphere due to intense friction with the air and burn up, releasing energy in the form of bright light ‪—‬ have been unusually frequent over the past week.

The barrage began last Tuesday (March 17), when a car-size meteor spectacularly broke apart in the daytime sky over Ohio and emitted a powerful sonic boom that shattered some windows on the ground near Cleveland. Meteorites also made it to the ground after this aerial explosion, and several potential fragments have since been recovered. (Daytime fireballs are often associated with sonic booms because only the most powerful explosions can be seen while the sun is still up.)

Then, on Sunday evening (March 22), a day after the Texas fireball, another burning meteor was spotted streaking above California. This space rock, which was seen by more than 200 people, was also glimpsed in parts of Arizona and Nevada, according to another NASA report.

And finally, on Monday night (March 23), locals reported a second, smaller fireball over Ohio. This event, the fourth fireball in seven days, has been documented by the American Meteor Society but has not yet been reported by NASA.

In an X post, NASA representatives commented on the unusual frequency of the fireballs but did not offer an explanation. There are no ongoing meteor showers or known asteroid groups that could explain this recent activity.

However, other experts have pointed out that fireballs are almost always more common between February and April, with some years seeing up to a 30% increase in sightings during these months, according to EarthSky.com. This phenomenon, dubbed the "spring fireballs," is likely the result of Earth's position relative to the sun and the rest of the solar system. However, researchers are not entirely sure how or why it occurs.

Since the start of February, at least nine major fireballs have been seen above the U.S., according to NASA's Space Alerts page.

Watch out below

It is extremely rare for meteorites to land in populated areas. But the recent incidents in Houston and Germany are an important reminder that these space rocks do pose a slim risk to people and their property.

Another warning came in June 2025, when a meteorite punched a hole through the roof of a home in Georgia — and was later discovered to be older than Earth.

Meteorites have also crashed into people's bedrooms in New Jersey in 2023 and British Columbia in 2021. And in 2022, a house in California burned down after being hit by a suspected fireball fragment (although it remains unclear if this was the true cause of the fire).

A tiny space rock also landed on and scorched a driveway in southwest England in 2021, while a similar encounter was filmed on a doorbell camera at a Canadian house in January 2025.

And in 2023, a French woman is believed to have been directly hit by a pebble-size meteorite while drinking coffee on her front porch. This is thought to be only the second confirmed case of a direct human-meteorite impact, after an Alabama woman was hit and injured by a hefty rock that crashed through her roof as she slept in 1954.

An extremely rare "daytime fireball" meteor was recently spotted streaking across sunny blue skies over the eastern U.S. after a fridge-size space rock exploded and triggered a powerful sonic boom. The unusual event, which was also visible from space, may have rained tiny meteorite fragments across the local area, experts say.

The 6-foot-wide (1.8 meters) asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere on Tuesday (March 17), at approximately 8:57 a.m. EDT, and began to burn up in the skies over Lake Erie in northern Ohio at a speed of around 40,000 mph (64,400 km/h), according to a NASA report. The flaming space rock, which weighed around 7 tons (6.4 metric tons), then broke apart around 30 miles (48 kilometers) above the town of Valley City near Akron, creating a bright flash that lasted for up to seven seconds.

Multiple eyewitnesses and security cameras recorded the explosion, and at least 200 people — from states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Wisconsin, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia, as well as parts of Canada — reported seeing the event to the American Meteor Society (AMS).

Several people along the meteor's path reported hearing a loud bang coming from the sky, which was later confirmed to be a sonic boom from the fragmenting space rock, according to a post on the social platform X by the Cleveland branch of the National Weather Service.

The streaking fireball was also visible from space and was caught on camera by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) GOES-19 weather satellite, which orbits Earth at an altitude of around 22,000 miles (35,500 km), Live Science's sister site Space.com reported.

Fireball meteors occur when falling space rocks are superheated due to high levels of friction from the surrounding air, according to AMS. This eventually causes the object to break apart, which creates a bright flash of light.

These explosions can be extremely powerful. The latest fireball, for example, likely exploded with the equivalent force of 250 tons (227 metric tons) of TNT and unleashed pressure waves that "may have shook houses" on the ground, according to the NASA report.

Most fireball meteors are spotted at night, when they are much more visible. However, the light shows can be so bright that they briefly outshine the sun in the daytime sky. These super-bright "daytime fireballs" are often reported alongside sonic booms.

The majority of fireball fragments burn up before they reach the ground or are too small to be noticed. However, particularly hefty space rocks, like the one that exploded over Ohio, can produce meteorites that impact Earth's surface.

"When an extraordinarily large meteor (beach ball size or larger) enters the atmosphere, it often survives down to the lower atmosphere where the air molecules are dense enough to carry sound," Robert Lunsford, a meteor observer with AMS, told Space.com. Therefore, the sonic boom heard during this incident is "a good indication that the fireball produced fragments on the ground."

If there were meteorites, AMS simulations suggest that they most likely landed somewhere "in the vicinity of Akron," Lunsford added.

Most fireball fragments land in unpopulated areas and therefore pose little threat and can be very hard to find. But this isn't always the case. For example, just nine days prior to this incident, on March 8, around a dozen meteorites fell on a town in Germany during a bright fireball event — one of which punched a sizable hole through the roof of a family home.

A fireball meteor spectacularly exploded in the skies over Europe before raining fiery fragments onto buildings in a German town — punching a hole through the roof of a house and into the bedroom below, according to reports.

On Sunday (March 8), at around 6:55 p.m. local time, a meteor streaked through the atmosphere over the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate before it suddenly exploded, creating a bright flash that lasted for around six seconds, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). The light show likely meant that the space rock, caught on camera by Europe's AllSky7 fireball network, was "several meters" in diameter..

More than 3,000 people — including eyewitnesses in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands — reported the explosion to the International Meteor Organization. Several people also reported hearing the atmospheric explosion from the ground.

ESA representatives wrote that "at least one house in the German town of Koblenz-Güls is reported to have been struck by small pieces of the resulting meteorites."

Local reports have since confirmed that multiple buildings in the area were hit by fragments. Some of these meteorites have since been collected, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported. Nobody is believed to have sustained any physical injuries from the falling space rocks.

It is unclear how many buildings were hit by the extraterrestrial debris or what the total extent of the damage is. However, German news site Bild shared several photos from the town, which is home to around 110,000 people, including an image of a hole around the size of a soccer ball in one roof. The local fire department told Bild that the rock that punched this hole ended up in a bedroom, which was unoccupied at the time.

Another photo showed nine golf ball-size rocks in a brown paper bag. However, it is unclear if these were all of the fragments that were collected, and they are yet to be confirmed as true meteorites.

Fireball meteors occur when falling space rocks are superheated due to high levels of friction from the surrounding air, according to the American Meteor Society. This often causes the object to break apart, which creates a secondary bright flash (as seen in the latest video).

Most of the resulting fragments burn up before they hit the ground or are so small that they are never found. But occasionally, a few larger pieces can remain intact before impacting our planet's surface, especially when the fireball breaks apart close to the ground.

The space rock that exploded over Germany was not known to scientists before it entered Earth's atmosphere. But this is "not unusual," given that only 11 meteors have ever been detected prior to hitting our planet, according to ESA.

Other close calls

It is extremely rare for meteorites to land in populated areas, let alone impact property or people. But it has happened before.

In June last year, a space rock that punched a hole through the roof of a home in Georgia and was later discovered to be older than Earth. Similar incidents have also seen meteorites crash into the bedrooms of homes in New Jersey in 2023 and British Columbia in 2021. And in 2022, a house in California burned down after being hit by a suspected fireball fragment — although it remains unclear if this was the true cause of the fire.

A tiny space rock also landed on and scorched a driveway in southwest England in 2021 and was collected for analysis. A similar encounter was filmed on a doorbell camera at a Canadian house in January 2025, which also captured the first-ever sound of a meteorite impact.

And in 2023, a French woman is believed to have been directly hit by a pebble-size meteorite while drinking coffee on her front porch, without causing any real injury. This is thought to be only the second confirmed case of a human-meteorite impact, after an Alabama woman was hit and injured by a hefty rock that crashed through her roof as she slept in 1954, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

If you're stargazing late overnight on Dec. 21-22, keep an eye out for "shooting stars" as the annual Ursid meteor shower peaks.

Although the Ursids are active from Dec. 13 through Dec. 26, the peak night coincides with the winter solstice, which occurs at 10:03 a.m. EST on Dec. 21. Though the two events are totally unrelated, the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere is a great time to look for meteors, and to photograph them if you're up for the challenge.

The Ursids are not one of the year's major meteor showers, and they are often overlooked in the run-up to Christmas — but there are good reasons to observe them this year.

This year, the Ursid meteor shower comes very soon after a new moon — when our natural satellite is between Earth and the sun and is absent from the night sky — meaning the shower should benefit from profound darkness. A new moon occurs at 8:43 p.m. EST on Dec. 19, and on Dec. 21, it will be barely visible after sunset as a 2%-illuminated crescent. Because "shooting stars" are fast and often faint, dark skies can boost the chances of seeing these meteors.

The Ursid meteor shower normally produces about five to 10 shooting stars per hour, according to the American Meteor Society. However, outbursts — when rates have exceeded 25 meteors per hour — have been recorded in the past. Bursts of about 100 meteors per hour happened in 1945 and 1986, according to EarthSky.

Although you can look for Ursids all night, the hours before dawn on Monday, Dec. 22 are likely the best time. That's because the shower's radiant point — from which they appear to originate — is the bright star Kochab in the constellation Ursa Minor, which will be highest in the northern sky around that time. The Ursids are not visible from most of the Southern Hemisphere.

The Ursid meteor shower is caused by dust and debris left in the inner solar system by Comet 8P/Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 13.5 years.

The next meteor shower will be the Quadrantids, another often-overlooked shower. It will peak overnight on Jan. 2-3, 2026, when around 120 meteors per hour will clash with the bright light of January's full "Wolf Moon."

Editor's note: This article was updated on Dec. 12 at 10:45 a.m. to indicate that the Geminids are peaking this weekend. Find some dark skies, and look up for shooting stars! Here's the best way to photograph the annual night sky spectacle.

The most prolific meteor shower of the year is about to deliver more "shooting stars" than any other in near-perfect conditions for skywatchers.

The annual Geminid meteor shower starts Thursday (Dec. 4), and remains active for the next two weeks. But this year’s peak will be the night to watch. During the peak of the Geminids, on Saturday, Dec. 13 through Sunday, Dec. 14, as many as 150 meteors per hour may be visible in the night sky, and the best views will be from the Northern Hemisphere.

This year, the show will be extra special because the peak night will take place in a dark, mostly moonless sky. A 28%-illuminated waning crescent moon will rise in the east at about 2:30 a.m. local time across the Northern Hemisphere. That's about the same time the radiant point of the Geminids — near the bright stars Castor and Pollux, in the constellation Gemini — rises highest in the sky.

However, anytime from 10 p.m. onward is a good time to look for Geminids, and the later you stay up, the better it will be, according to the American Meteor Society.

In addition to being one of the few major meteor showers that's active before midnight, the Geminids are often bright, slow-moving and colorful. That's because the Geminids originate from a blue, rocky object about 3.6 miles (5.8 kilometers) in diameter. The asteroid, called 3200 Phaethon, orbits the sun every 1.4 years and gives the meteors a denser composition.

The Geminid meteor shower is the only annual meteor shower known to be caused by an asteroid rather than by a comet. The colors are due to traces of elements like sodium and calcium in the meteors, according to the BBC.

For the best views, get as far from artificial lights as possible, and allow about 20 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the darkness. Avoid looking at phone screens, or use red-light mode to preserve your night vision. You don't need to look directly at the radiant point to see meteors; they can appear anywhere overhead. Meteor showers are best viewed with the naked eye; no skywatching binoculars or backyard telescopes are necessary, though they will help you get the best views of the year’s last supermoon.

Although the rates of "shooting stars" from the Geminids will quickly reduce after the peak night, the meteor shower will be active through Dec. 17. That same night marks the beginning of the less-impressive Ursid meteor shower, which will produce around 10 meteors per hour on its peak night of Dec. 21-22.

Although they're not as strong as the Geminids, the Ursids will occur in the completely dark skies of a new moon. These back-to-back meteor showers are a fine way to round out the year’s stargazing.

A meteor exploded over Michigan's Great Lakes in a green fireball, videos reveal. The dramatic event was likely caused by a comet fragment burning up in the atmosphere.

On Sunday (Nov. 23) at around 5:29 a.m. ET, dozens of witnesses reported a meteor racing across the sky before exploding in a fiery ball. Cameras set up by the group Michigan Storm Chasers captured the object's rapid passage and fiery descent, the group revealed in a Facebook post.

The fireball was reportedly seen in Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana, and up to 340 miles (550 kilometers) away in Lancaster, Ohio, according to the American Meteorological Society (AMS).

One video sent to AMS captured the stunning fireball flying through the sky from Coldwater, Michigan, while another video showed the streaking lightshow from Tecumseh, Michigan.

NASA later tracked the meteor's path using videos and other reports. It became visible 62 miles (100 km) above Hubbard Lake, before racing at 98,500 mph (160,000 km/h) for another 82 miles (132 km) and disintegrating 46 miles (74 km) above Lake Huron, NASA representatives wrote.

The streaking fireball was likely a one-off and not part of a wider shower, such as the ongoing Leonid meteor shower, which runs from Nov. 6 to Nov. 30. Leonid meteors are known for their speed, striking Earth's atmosphere at about 160,000 mph (260,000 km/h). This velocity often produces bright meteors, or fireballs, some of which leave persistent trails. "This event appears to have been caused by a small comet fragment and was not part of any currently active meteor shower," NASA representatives wrote.

Most comets and meteors can be seen with the naked eye, but photographing them requires a good set of astrophotography equipment.

Fireball meteors sometimes give off a green color due to a high concentration of metals such as nickel, while faster meteoroids also typically produce more vivid colors, according to AMS. Other elements can create different-colored fireballs — for example, sodium produces a bright yellow color while magnesium appears as blue-white, according to AMS.

Similar green colors have been given off by other fireball meteors. For example, in July 2022, a green fireball was spotted above New Zealand, and in November 2022, another one crashed into Lake Ontario. The Ontario fireball was the smallest asteroid ever recorded in space, at just 16 to 24 inches (40 to 60 centimeters) wide.

Millions of mysterious black streaks littered across the surface of Mars have puzzled scientists for decades, but now researchers may finally have a proper explanation. The new theory also explains why it has taken so long to solve this particular problem.

Martian "slope streaks" are dark albedo features that cover the slopes of topographical features across the Red Planet. They were discovered in the 1970s, and scientists initially assumed they were evidence of landslides caused by melting ice. But while scientists still think that the streaks are the result of landslides, a study published in May revealed that these landslides are actually triggered by "dry processes" that do not involve any water. This narrowed down the list of potential causes but did not conclusively settle the debate around the streaks' origins.

One of the most famous examples of these streaks is on Apollinaris Mons — an extinct shield volcano located just south of Mars' equator. Here, hundreds of parallel streaks can be seen on a single side of a large ridge, giving the structure a "barcode-like" appearance (see below). These streaks appeared at some point between 2013 and 2017, and scientists later realized that they were the result of a nearby meteoroid impact, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported.

As a result, some researchers assumed that meteoroid impacts and other seismic events, such as marsquakes, are responsible for birthing most slope streaks. But a new study, published Nov. 6 in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that this is not the case.

Instead, an analysis of around 2.1 million slope streaks, photographed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter between 2006 and 2024, revealed that almost all new streaks are the result of seasonal wind and dust erosion. (The study estimates the total number of slope streaks on Mars to be around 1.6 million, but some streaks were included in multiple image sets.)

"Dust, wind and sand dynamics appear to be the main seasonal drivers of slope streak formation," the study's sole author Valentin Bickel, a planetary scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland who also co-authored the May study, said in a statement. "Meteoroid impacts and quakes seem to be locally distinct, yet globally relatively insignificant drivers [of streak formation]," he added.

Bickel estimates that less than 0.1% of newly formed slope streaks are created by meteoroid impacts or marsquakes.

Bickel's analysis showed that slope streaks are grouped into five key regions across Mars, and that new streaks form in each of these areas when seasonal wind speeds are highest and exceed the threshold for "dust mobilization." Once this threshold has been surpassed, landslides can more easily occur in that area, Bickel added.

This process is similar to how high winds can pick up Martian dust and trigger sizable tornadoes, or "dust devils," on the Red Planet's wide-open plains.

The reason it has taken scientists so long to solve this puzzle is likely because it all happens under the cover of darkness. "The conditions most conducive to seasonal streak formation appear to occur at sunrise and sunset, explaining the lack of direct observations of streak-forming events to date," Bickel wrote in the study.

The study also revealed that slope streak formation likely occurs at an annual rate of around 0.05 new streaks per existing streak. Given that there are estimated to be 1.6 million slope streaks, that means the current rate of formation is around 80,000 new streaks per year. Most streaks likely last for several decades before disappearing, but there is not enough orbiter data to tell for sure.

While slope streaks cover less than 0.1% of Mars' surface, the new study suggests that they may be the largest single contributor to atmospheric dust. Therefore, better understanding the streaks' role in the Martian dust cycle, which could impact future human colonies on Mars, should be a key goal for future Mars missions.

"These observations could lead to a better understanding of what happens on Mars today," Colin Wilson, the European Space Agency's project scientist for the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, who was not involved in the new study, said in the statement. "Obtaining long-term, continuous and global-scale observations that reveal a dynamic Mars is a key objective of present and future orbiters."

The annual Leonid meteor shower will peak in the early morning hours Monday (Nov. 17), and if you're willing to rise early (or stay up late), you may spot up to 15 meteors per hour in a moonless night sky.

The Leonids are active from Nov. 6 to 30, but the peak night — when Earth passes through the densest part of the meteor stream — will take place between midnight and dawn on Nov. 17.

This year's Leonids offer one of their best viewing windows in recent years, thanks to a nearly moonless night. According to the American Meteor Society, a waning crescent moon — just 9% illuminated — will rise late in the predawn hours, leaving the prime viewing hours free of moonlight.

Leonid meteors are known for their speed, striking Earth's atmosphere at approximately 44 miles per second (70 kilometers per second). This velocity often produces bright meteors, or fireballs, some of which leave persistent trails.

The Leonids are caused by tiny particles from Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle that burn up in the atmosphere, producing meteors. The comet orbits the sun every 33 years and is due to return to the inner solar system in 2031.

Historically, the Leonids have been known for producing dramatic meteor storms. These rare events, where rates exceeded 1,000 meteors per hour, were recorded in 1833, 1866, 1966, 1999, 2001 and 2002. The 1966 Leonid meteor shower is rated as the finest in recorded history; so many meteors were seen in a 15-minute period that they appeared to fall like rain, according to NASA. No dense debris encounters are expected this year, however, so a meteor storm is unlikely.

For the best experience, head outside between 2 a.m. and dawn on Nov. 17. Find a location away from city lights, lie back with a wide view of the sky, and allow your eyes about 20 minutes to adapt to the dark.

Leonids appear to radiate from the constellation Leo, which rises in the eastern sky after midnight. However, meteors can be seen in any part of the sky, and stargazing binoculars or a telescope can help you spot them. Because Leo is on the celestial equator, this meteor shower can be seen just as easily in both hemispheres.

After the Leonids, the next major meteor shower will be the Geminids — the most prolific meteor shower of the year. During this event, which peaks Dec. 13-14, around 140 "shooting stars" per hour may be visible.

A strange, lopsided dust cloud shrouds Earth's moon, ever skewed toward whichever side is facing the sun. Now, a new study may finally explain how the asymmetrical cloud got its shape.

Most of the moon's surface is covered by a layer of gray dust and loose rocks. This layer, called regolith, arises because the lunar surface is constantly bombarded by micrometeoroids — tiny space rocks created by asteroid collisions and comets. Without a protective atmosphere — which, in Earth's case, causes micrometeoroids to burn up as "shooting stars" — the moon is struck by several tons of micrometeoroids daily. These impacts, in turn, grind the regolith's rocks to dust.

The micrometeoroids also lift lunar dust. In 2015, researchers found that this rising dust creates a massive cloud that extends several hundred miles above the lunar surface. The cloud isn't very thick, and it's not visible to the naked eye, Sébastien Verkercke, a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre National D'Etudes Spatiales (France's national space agency) in Paris and the new study's first author, told Live Science in an email.

"The maximum density measured was only 0.004 particles per cubic meter (the equivalent to 4 dust grains in a grain silo)," he said. However, the cloud is unusual in being asymmetric, with more dust present over the moon's daytime side (the side facing the sun at any given moment) than its nighttime side. In fact, the cloud is "densest close to the surface near the dawn terminator," Verkercke added, referring to the stark line that separates sunlight from darkness on the moon's surface.

The cloud's discoverers had attributed this lopsidedness to specific meteoroid groups with trajectories that cause the meteoroids to strike the daytime surface more frequently. But the obvious difference between the daytime and nighttime sides of the moon — the temperature — stuck out to Verkercke.

Whereas the moon's surface is often broiling during the day, with temperatures soaring far above that of the hottest place on Earth, the lunar night is four times colder than Antarctica's average temperature. This ginormous temperature swing of up to 545 degrees Fahrenheit (285 degrees Celsius) led Verkercke and his co-authors to wonder if it could be responsible for the cloud's skewed appearance.

To test this hypothesis, Verkercke and his colleagues (researchers from U.S. and European universities) turned to computer models. The team simulated tiny meteoroids — each the width of a human hair — slamming into the lunar dust at two temperatures, 233 degrees Fahrenheit (112 degrees Celsius) and minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 183 degrees Celsius), corresponding to the moon's average daytime and pre-dawn temperatures, respectively.

"The ejected dust grains are then individually tracked to monitor their distribution in space," Verkercke said. The researchers also repeated the simulations while varying how compactly it was packed.

They found that meteoroids that hit "fluffier" surfaces throw up smaller amounts of dust, because the fluffiness of the surface cushions the impacts. In contrast, meteoroids that strike more compact surfaces yield larger amounts of low-speed dust particles. The researchers think this difference means that the dust clouds can be a marker of how compact the lunar surface is.

Moreover, daytime meteoroids raise 6% to 8% more dust than nighttime ones do. And a larger fraction of those dust particles at high temperatures (relative to those formed at lower temperatures) have enough energy to reach the height of orbiting satellites that can detect them. Both the larger amounts of lofted dust and the bigger fractions of dust reaching the satellites could explain the daytime dust excess, the researchers explained in the study, published Oct. 15 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

The team plans to extend their analysis to other bodies in the solar system that are impacted by small meteoroids. Verkercke noted that one particularly interesting case is Mercury, which has a much hotter temperature than the moon's daytime surface and thus, a larger day-night temperature difference. This, in turn, should create an even more asymmetrical dust cloud.

The researchers hope to virtually replicate this hypothesized observation, which the BepiColombo mission to Mercury will also investigate, Verkercke added.

Skywatchers are set for something special after dark on Monday, Oct. 20, through Tuesday, Oct. 21, when an annual meteor shower produced by Halley's Comet peaks just as two recently discovered comets reach their brightest points in the night sky.

According to the American Meteor Society, the Orionid meteor shower runs from Oct. 2 through Nov. 7, peaking on Oct. 20 to Oct. 21. That coincides with a new moon — when the moon is between Earth and the sun and is absent from the night sky — meaning the rare sky show should benefit from profound darkness. However, clear weather will still be required to see meteors and the brightening comets Lemmon (C/2025 A6) and SWAN (C/2025 R2).

The Orionids are the main event in fall's "meteor season," during which a host of minor meteor showers take place. Around 20 "shooting stars" per hour are expected during the Orionids' peak, with meteors hitting Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 41 miles per second (66 kilometers per second). The "shooting stars" can occur anywhere in the night sky, but if you trace them backwards, they will appear to come from a region of the night sky just north of the bright reddish star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion — hence the shower's name. NASA calls the Orionids one of the most beautiful showers of the year.

Orionids are the product of Halley's Comet, which was last seen in the inner solar system in 1986 and will next be seen in 2061. The other meteor shower caused by Halley's Comet is April's Eta Aquariids.

While the Orionid meteor shower will be best seen in the hours after midnight on Tuesday, Oct. 21, the viewing window for the comets will take place much earlier the previous evening. Both comets will be in the post-sunset night sky and will be best seen an hour and a half after sunset — primarily with stargazing binoculars, but perhaps with the naked eye too if viewed from a dark sky site.

Comet Lemmon, which was discovered in January by the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter observatory in Arizona's Santa Catalina Mountains, will be low in the northwest between the end of the handle of the Big Dipper and the bright star Arcturus. Comet SWAN, which was first spotted in September by NASA's orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory, will be low in the south, just below the bright star Altair, one of the three stars in the famous Summer Triangle shape.

If you're out just after dark Wednesday (Oct. 8), look up for a chance to spot "fireballs" as the annual Draconid meteor shower peaks.

Although this meteor shower is predicted to produce only about 10 "shooting stars" per hour during its peak that evening, the Draconids are still a worthy skywatching event. That's because some of these meteors can be very bright and dramatic, with trails that last a second or so. It's also one of the most conveniently timed meteor shower peaks of the year for observers in the Northern Hemisphere.

While most meteor showers are at their best well after midnight, the Draconids are a rare exception. That's because, in the Northern Hemisphere sky, they appear to originate from the constellation Draco, a vast yet little-known constellation that winds its way around Polaris (the North Star), which marks Earth's north celestial pole. It's around here that the stars appear to rotate, which makes Draco circumpolar — always in the sky — as seen from the Northern Hemisphere. Most constellations rise and fall throughout the night and become highest in the sky, where the sky is darkest, late at night.

According to the American Meteor Society, the Draconids are highly variable. They can fizzle with just a few meteors or, on rare occasions, flare dramatically. With the full Harvest Moon rising early in the week, the night skies will be bleached. Therefore, only the brightest fireballs" are likely to cut through.

The source of the Draconids is Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, which loops through the inner solar system every 6.5 years, leaving bits of icy debris in its wake.

There are also other reasons to look north on Oct. 8. There's a possibility of intense northern lights, with displays twice as likely during early October in the wake of the equinox on Sept. 22. The equinox causes Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind to align, making geomagnetic storms more common and more intense, according to EarthSky. For the latest predictions, which can change suddenly, keep an eye on NOAA's 30-minute forecast and skywatching sites like SpaceWeatherLive.com.

Oct. 8 is also about the right time to begin looking for two comets just after sunset: Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6) in the northern sky, and Comet SWAN R2 (C/2025 R2) in the west. Both comets will be visible with a pair of skywatching binoculars or a backyard telescope, and it may even be possible to spot Comet Lemmon with unaided eyes in the coming days.

A space rock that punched a hole through a Georgia resident's home earlier this summer may be 20 million years older than our planet, researchers say.

The meteorite streaked across the sky as a fireball on June 26, just before a piece of it struck a house in the city of McDonough. A researcher at the University of Georgia (UGA) studied material recovered from the house and found that the meteorite formed around 4.56 billion years ago — making it about 20 million years older than Earth.

"This particular meteor that entered the atmosphere has a long history before it made it to the ground of McDonough," Scott Harris, a researcher in the geology department at UGA, said in a statement.

Harris' analysis revealed that the newly named McDonough meteorite came from beyond Mars and is linked to a much larger asteroid that broke up around half a billion years ago.

"It belongs to a group of asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that we now think we can tie to a breakup of a much larger asteroid about 470 million years ago," Harris said. "But in that breakup, some pieces get into Earth-crossing orbits, and if given long enough, their orbit around the sun and Earth’s orbit around the sun end up being at the same place, at the same moment in time."

Related: Perseid meteor shower 2025: How to see 'shooting stars' despite the full moon

The McDonough meteorite made quite an entrance on June 26. NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office estimated that the 3-foot-wide (1 meter) object was travelling at 29,000 mph (47,000 km/h), while the American Meteor Society received more than 240 sighting reports of a fireball across the Southeast. Many people also heard and felt a sonic boom, which some mistook for an earthquake, the Smithsonian Magazine reported shortly after the event.

The meteorite slowed down a lot as it traveled through our atmosphere and broke apart as it got closer to the ground, but it was still moving fast enough to cause damage on impact.

"When they [meteorites] encounter Earth, our atmosphere is very good at slowing them down," Harris said. "But you're talking about something that is double the size of a 50-caliber shell, going at least 1 kilometer per second [0.6 miles per second]. That's like running 10 football fields in one second."

When part of the meteorite hit the house in McDonough, it went straight through the roof, ceiling, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) duct. It left a dent in the living room floor and made a noise and vibration that sounded like a close-range gunshot, according to the statement. The piece of rock was pulverized into fragments on impact, scattering space dust around the room that the resident of the house is still finding today.

Harris used optical and electron microscopy to analyze 0.8 ounces (23 grams) of rock fragments recovered from the house. Based on this analysis, he believes that the meteorite is a stony meteorite (chondrite) that's low in metal content, according to the statement.

Researchers will continue to analyze the rock fragments at UGA, while some additional pieces that landed in the area will go on display at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville.

Meteorites are relatively rare in Georgia; this is only the 27th documented in the state's history and the sixth to have been witnessed falling, according to the statement. However, Harris noted that they are now being recorded more frequently.

"This is something that used to be expected once every few decades and not multiple times within 20 years," Harris said. "Modern technology in addition to an attentive public is going to help us recover more and more meteorites."

The Perseids — one of the strongest meteor showers of the year in the Northern Hemisphere — will peak on the night of Aug. 12-13. This meteor shower typically brings up to 75 "shooting stars" per hour, but this year, there's a big problem: a nearly full moon.

Meteor showers are always best seen in dark, moonless skies. However, August's full Sturgeon Moon rises on Saturday, Aug. 9. The moon always rises later each day as it orbits Earth, but in the summer, there's less of a difference. By Tuesday, Aug. 12, it will rise at almost the same time as it begins to get dark, making the window for a moonless night sky extremely short.

For example, on Aug. 9 in New York, the sun will set at 8:27 p.m. EDT, and an 84%-illuminated waning gibbous moon will rise at about 10:01 p.m. EDT and will remain in the sky for the rest of the night, according to Time and Date. Astronomical twilight — when "shooting stars" may become visible — doesn't begin until 10:28 p.m. EDT. With the Perseids peaking around midnight, there is no ideal time on the peak night when the night sky will be properly dark.

But all is not lost. The peak on Aug. 12-13 is particularly strong, according to the American Meteor Society, so even though you won't spot anything like the 50 to 75 meteors per hour sometimes seen in dark rural skies, shooting stars should still be visible in a clear sky. The peak night is still likely to be the best time to look.

It also helps that the moon will trace a low arc across the southern sky — as it does in summer when it's close to its full phase — but your expectations should be conservative. Just a handful of bright "shooting stars" are likely to be seen by most observers.

The best advice is to watch with your back to the moon. That will serve a dual purpose because the moon will be in the south, while the radiant point of the Perseids (located in the constellation Perseus) will be rising in the northeast.

With each passing night after the peak, the moon rises later, widening the window for a moonless sky after sunset. However, with the rates dipping considerably after the peak night, there is no ideal time to watch the Perseid meteor shower this year.

The Perseid meteor shower is the result of dust and debris left in the inner solar system by a colossal comet called Swift-Tuttle. About 16 miles (26 kilometers) in diameter, it was last in the inner solar system in 1992 and won't be seen again until 2125, according to NASA.

Two meteor showers will peak together on Monday night (July 29-30), with the moon out of the way just in time for about 25 shooting stars per hour to be seen in dark skies.

The highlight will be the Southern Delta Aquariids, the stronger of the two showers, with expected rates of up to 20 meteors per hour at the shower's peak. Active from July 18 to Aug. 12, the Southern Delta Aquariids are known for their faint, lingering trails.

However, the peak of the Southern Delta Aquariids is broad. According to the American Meteor Society, the meteor shower produces good rates for a week centered on the peak night, so it will be worth looking between July 24 and July 31.

As the name suggests, the Southern Delta Aquariids are best seen from the Southern Hemisphere. That's because the meteors appear to come from the constellation Aquarius, which is low on the southern horizon as viewed from the Northern Hemisphere. Astronomers call this its radiant point. Because Aquarius rises due south and gets highest in the sky in the predawn hours during July, that's when observers will likely see the most meteors.

"Shooting stars" occur when meteoroids from asteroids or comets are left in Earth's orbital path. When they strike Earth's atmosphere and burn up, they're called meteors. A 3.7-mile-wide (6 kilometers) comet called 96P/Machholz, which was discovered in 1986 and takes 5.3 years to orbit the sun, is responsible for the Southern Delta Aquariids.

Related: How to photograph a meteor shower

The second meteor shower to peak overnight on July 29-30 is the Alpha Capricornids, which will add about five to 10 meteors per hour. Active from July 7 to Aug. 15, the shower's radiant point is the constellation Capricornus, which is alongside Aquarius in the night sky. That will make shooting stars from the two meteor showers hard to tell apart, but the Alpha Capricornids tend to be particularly bright, slow-moving and colorful. They are the result of the 2-mile-wide (3.2 km) Comet 169P/NEAT, which was discovered in 2002 and takes 4.2 years to orbit the sun.

Observers in the Southern Hemisphere will enjoy the best viewing conditions, but from anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, you can look generally south in the predawn hours on July 30 to have the best chance of success.

The best way to enjoy a meteor shower is with your naked eyes; even a good backyard telescope or pair of binoculars won't help, as the spectacle takes place across vast stretches of sky. Simply find the darkest spot you can, preferably far from light pollution, and give your eyes at least 20 minutes to adjust to the darkness for the best view.

Editor's note: This article was updated on Friday (July 25) with more information on viewing the duel meteor showers.

The annual Perseid meteor display is one of the best-known and commonly observed meteor showers in the Northern Hemisphere. But this year, if you want to enjoy the show, it's best to get in early or a little bit late.

The 2025 Perseids will be active from Thursday, July 17, through Saturday, Aug. 23 and will peak on Aug. 12 and 13. But the presence of a near-full moon will make this year's event disappointing, with only the very brightest shooting stars visible.

Typical advice for the peak of a major meteor shower is to head to a location with low levels of light pollution, such as a dark sky place or an area that appears dark on a light pollution map.

However, with August's full Sturgeon Moon on Saturday, Aug. 9, its light will bleach the night sky just as the Perseids' peak gets underway. On the night of the peak, a waning gibbous moon will rise a couple of hours before midnight and be 84% lit, shining brightly all night. It will effectively pollute the night sky with its light, making a trip to escape urban light pollution pointless.

Because of the moon's plan to steal the show, the best way to see the Perseids this year will be both before and after the peak nights. (Although the rate of shooting stars will be much lower in both cases).

After the peak, the waning gibbous moon will begin to move out of the way when it next reaches its last quarter phase on Aug. 16. Although the rates of shooting stars will be on the wane by that time, any clear nights that week should herald at least some views of the celestial light show.

Related: How to photograph a meteor shower

The Perseid meteor shower is known for its fast and bright meteors, which move at a swift 37 miles per second (60 kilometers per second). They're the product of tiny particles left in the solar system by Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle striking Earth's atmosphere. As they do, they heat up and vaporize, releasing energy visible as streaks of light in the night sky.

While conditions in 2025 are far from perfect, if you go stargazing when the moon is down — and even when it's up — you'll probably notice one or two of the year's most famous shooting stars.

You don't need a backyard telescope or pair of stargazing binoculars to enjoy a meteor shower. Just get yourself to a dark place, give your eyes about 20 minutes to adjust, and look up.

Editor's note: This article was updated on Aug. 6 with new information about the upcoming peak.

The chemical composition of a meteorite could shake up scientists' understanding of how Earth got its water.

Researchers found signs of hydrogen sulfide in a type of meteorite similar to those that made up the early Earth. If these rocky bodies contain abundant hydrogen when out in space, it's possible that Earth could have formed with the materials to make water, rather than getting most of its water from chance collisions with asteroids and meteoroids throughout the planet’s early history. The findings were published April 16 in the journal Icarus.

Earth's chemical makeup is similar to waterless rocky bodies called enstatite chondrites, which suggests the planet may have formed from these types of materials. For years, scientists thought that meant that water had to come from objects in the outer solar system bombarding Earth. Those collisions are broadly unlikely because they depend on the specific geometry of our solar system, with Jupiter's gravity sending comets and meteorites toward the inner solar system, said Alessandro Morbidelli, who studies planet formation at Collége de France in Paris and was not involved in the new research.

But a 2020 study showed that, though enstatite chondrites don't contain water, they do contain hydrogen. In theory, then, the hydrogen they carried could have reacted with oxygen in the early Earth to form abundant water. But it wasn’t clear what form that hydrogen was in. Study coauthor James Bryson, a planetary scientist at the University of Oxford, and his colleagues suspected the hydrogen might be attached to sulfur inside the meteorites.

Using a technique known as X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy, the researchers looked for signs of hydrogen attached to sulfur inside an enstatite chondrite first found in Antarctica in 2012. They found more hydrogen than expected, in the form of hydrogen sulfide, throughout the fine-grained matrix of the meteorite.

Related: Meteorite found in a drawer at university contains 700-million-year-old evidence of water on Mars

The abundant hydrogen indicates that Earth could have contained hydrogen since the planet’s formation, Bryson wrote in an email to Live Science.

The findings suggest that rocky planets in the inner solar system — and potentially in other planetary systems — could form with much of the hydrogen necessary to create water oceans. "This means habitable conditions could be far more likely than we originally thought," Bryson continued.

Still, some scientists aren't convinced. Enstatite chondrites are prone to contamination from water already on Earth, said Conel Alexander, a meteoriticist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. who was not involved in the study. "When they enter the Earth's atmosphere and see water and even oxygen, they're going to start reacting quite quickly," Alexander told Live Science. The extra hydrogen might have come from the Antarctic ice and meltwater around the meteorite before it was discovered, Alexander said.

Though the researchers took steps to avoid examining areas that had visibly reacted with water, a fresh enstatite chondrite could confirm where the hydrogen came from once and for all. "The perfect thing would be for a sample of an enstatite chondrite to fall to Earth, and we scoop it up immediately and stick it into a water-free, oxygen-free environment and keep it there," Alexander told Live Science.

The annual Eta Aquariid meteor shower (also called the Eta Aquariids or Eta Aquarids) will peak tonight and tomorrow (May 5-6), giving skywatchers a chance to see "shooting stars" in the night sky.

With the potential for up to 60 meteors per hour, it's an exciting prospect for anyone with dark and clear skies, though your location will make a big difference in what you'll see. However, this meteor shower has a broad peak, so it's possible to see shooting stars in the nights just before and after the peak.

According to EarthSky, viewers in the Southern Hemisphere and more southerly parts of the Northern Hemisphere, such as Southern U.S. states, will get the best views. That's because the Eta Aquariids appear to come from the constellation Aquarius, which is higher in the sky the farther south it's observed from this time of year. The exact "radiant point," as astronomers call it, is the star Eta Aquarii, according to Time and Date.

With up to 60 meteors per hour under perfect conditions during the peak night, the Eta Aquariids are considered a strong meteor shower, but only when viewed from the tropics and south of the equator. According to the American Meteor Society, between 10 and 30 meteors per hour are expected just before dawn for viewers north of the equator.

Related: How to photograph a meteor shower

The moon's brightness can greatly affect the chances of seeing faint meteors. On Tuesday (May 6), a 63%-illuminated waxing gibbous moon will set in the early hours, making the predawn hours the best time to watch for meteors. (May's full "Flower Moon" rises on the 12th).

From the northern U.S., Canada and Europe, the radiant will remain low on the horizon, limiting the number of visible meteors. Although that means fewer meteors, they may be seen as "Earthgrazers," — meteors with long trails behind them that seem to skim the horizon, according to NASA.

The Eta Aquariids happen when Earth passes through dust and debris left behind in the inner solar system by Halley's Comet. As our planet moves through this stream of cosmic dust, tiny particles hit the atmosphere at speeds of about 40.7 miles per second (65.4 kilometers per second), according to the American Meteor Society. Halley's Comet, which was last in Earth's vicinity in 1986 and will return in 2061, is also responsible for the Orionid meteor shower, which will peak overnight on Oct. 20-21 this year.

Editor's note: This article was updated on May 5 to indicate the shower is about to peak.

An ancient meteorite strike hit what is now Scotland significantly later than previously thought, scientists say. The finding will rewrite the region's geological history and change what researchers thought they knew about some of the U.K.'s earliest land life.

Researchers initially believed the unnamed meteorite hit Earth 1.17 billion years ago, creating the Stac Fada Member rock layer in northwestern Scotland. However, a new study has determined that the meteorite actually hit 990 million years ago — around 200 million years later than previously thought.

The date difference is significant because it changes the geological timeline of the region, which during the days of the strike hosted some of what is now the U.K.'s earliest nonmarine life — microscopic freshwater organisms that became the ancestors to plants, animals and fungi, according to a statement released by the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

The Stac Fada Member — part of the supercontinent Rodinia 1 billion years ago — preserves what Earth's surface environments were like before and after the impact, study co-author Tony Prave, an emeritus professor of geoscience at the University of St Andrews, told Live Science.

"Those environments (rivers, lakes, estuaries) contained well-established microbial ecosystems," Prave said in an email. "Thus the region provides a natural laboratory to examine what microbial ecosystems and their habitats were like before the impact and, importantly, how they recovered following that dramatic event."

The researchers published their findings Monday (April 28) in the journal Geology.

Related: 'It was so simple': How Antarctica's missing meteorites were discovered using a block of ice, a freezer and a lamp

Meteorites are meteoroids — pieces of asteroids or comets — that make it through a planet's atmosphere without burning up and strike the surface. In this case, the strike occurred on Earth during the Precambrian period (4.6 billion to 541 million years ago), when life first evolved and diversified.

To better understand the impact date, researchers analyzed the crystals of zircon minerals in the Stac Fada Member. Zircon is highly resistant and can last for billions of years. Additional rings of zircon grow around the mineral's crystal core over time, like the rings in a tree trunk, and in doing so, they can preserve a record of geological events, according to the American Museum of Natural History.

Zircon also has tiny amounts of the radioactive element uranium in its crystal structure, which decays over a long period of time and changes into lead, Prave noted. Researchers can measure this decay and use it to date ancient geological events.

"The decay of uranium to lead is like a time clock hence, when the meteorite impacted the rocks, it 'reset' the time clock in the zircon crystals," Prave said. "My colleagues then extracted those zircons from the rock and analysed the ratio of lead to uranium within the crystals..."

The results showed that the impact occurred 200 million years later than researchers thought. The new estimate helps researchers better understand Scotland's ancient geology and early freshwater life, but there's still a lot they don't know about the impact, including the size of the meteorite. To estimate that, researchers would need access to the impact crater, but its location is unknown.

Prave noted that the environment of Stac Fada returned to normal after the impact, and sediment then slowly buried the impact rocks and associated ancient land surface over the next tens of millions of years. These sediments are now the Torridonian mountains. The crater could be beneath them or under the nearby sea, Prave said. Either way, it likely won't be found anytime soon.

"Basically, we'll have to wait another few tens of millions of years for the Torridonian mountains to be eroded away to see if we can find the impact beneath those or, more likely, the impact occurred in what became (about 950 million years later) the north Atlantic Ocean and hence its location will forever remain unknown," Prave said.

The first meteor shower of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, the Lyrids, will peak overnight on Monday, April 21-22. This year, the annual meteor shower will peak in virtually moonless night skies, which should make for a great show.

According to the American Meteor Society, around 18 "shooting stars" per hour could be visible during the height of the shower. However, with the peak set to occur in daylight in North America and a waning moon rising as a crescent after midnight on April 21, the best time to look — if skies are clear — will be immediately after it gets dark. Here's everything you need to know about how to photograph a meteor shower.

The Lyrids are caused by detritus left in the inner solar system by Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1). That name denotes the year the comet was discovered, according to NASA. In fact, it was discovered on its last visit to the inner solar system, in 1861. Comet Thatcher orbits the sun every 422 Earth years, with its next visit due in 2283.

Although Lyrids can occur anywhere in the night sky, they're named after the constellation Lyra, because that's where they appear to originate. Astronomers call this the radiant point of a meteor shower. Lyra, which contains the bright star Vega, can be seen rising in the east as it gets dark.

Related: The 10 best stargazing events of 2025

Active from April 16-25, the Lyrid meteor shower can produce particularly bright "shooting stars" known as fireballs, which makes it one of the best meteor showers to photograph. An easy way to photograph a meteor shower on a manual camera is to set it on a tripod and take exposures of about 20 to 30 seconds, using a low f-number and an ISO of between 800 and3200. (ISO 1600 is a good starting point.) Then, set it to take shot after shot on its own. Hopefully, one of them will include a shooting "star," which is actually the light produced by a meteoroid as it burns up in Earth's atmosphere.

As the Lyrids wane, another meteor shower will begin. That one will be best seen from the Southern Hemisphere. Active from April 19 to May 28, the Eta Aquarid meteor shower is set to peak on May 4-5. The Eta Aquarids appear to come from the constellation Aquarius, but the source is actually Halley's Comet. During the shower's peak, about 60 shooting stars can be seen from the Southern Hemisphere, with the Northern Hemisphere typically experiencing about 30 per hour.

Update: This article was updated on April 17 with current information about the Lyrids.

There are hundreds of thousands of meteorites hidden beneath Antarctica's icy surface, some of which are slowly sinking out of reach. You might think that these submerged space rocks would be very tricky, expensive and time-consuming to find. But in this excerpt from "The Meteorite Hunters" (Oneworld Publications, 2025), author Joshua Howgego reveals how researchers came up with a way to recover the lost objects — using just a lamp, a freezer and a block of ice.

As we know, meteorites can be split into three groups: stony, irons and stony-irons. If you look at the world collections of meteorites, the vast majority are stony meteorites; only 5.5% are either stony-iron or iron.

But here's the weird thing: If you look just at the meteorites recovered from Antarctica, only 0.7% are iron or stony-iron.

That's not just a small discrepancy. It means the chances of finding an iron-based meteorite are almost 10 times lower in Antarctica than they are anywhere else. And iron-containing meteorites are worth having, not least because they are useful for studying the way planets form their cores.

Earth has a molten iron core, the sloshing of which produces the magnetic field that protects our planet from harmful radiation in space (and produces the northern and southern lights). When planets began to form, though, the iron would have been distributed through their rocks and it would have gradually sunk into the middle of them as they grew larger.

It's thought that iron-containing meteorites might be fragments of planets that were part way through this core-forming process, but were smashed to pieces before they became big enough to endure.

Related: Never-before-seen shapes up to 1,300 feet long discovered beneath Antarctic ice

Anyway, learning about the missing irons planted a seed in Geoffrey Evatt's mind, and a while later he organised another of his workshops, this time at a countryside pub near Manchester, to talk about meteorites and ice. Several people came to give talks, including Katie Joy. She and Evatt had first met through some mutual friends on a rock-climbing holiday in Spain. She had recently moved to work at the University of Manchester too and, as an expert on meteorites who had already been out to Antarctica hunting the things, it was obvious that she should join the workshop.

It was at the pub workshop that Evatt and Joy began to discuss a delightfully simple solution to the problem of Antarctica's missing meteorites. Iron meteorites are typically dark or black in color and so absorb more warmth from sunlight than the lighter-coloured stony rocks. What if the iron stones were warming up to the point where they would actually melt the glacial ice beneath them and sink into it, perhaps even descending far enough so as to be hidden below the surface?

It was just a hypothesis, but it would explain a lot, and it was so simple that it had to be worth testing. Evatt worked out the mathematical model for how meteorites would absorb sunlight and the numbers seemed to check out. To test the idea, they would need some real meteorites, a block of ice, a freezer and a lamp.

That led them to Andrew Smedley, another University of Manchester researcher, who is an expert on sunlight and the way its particular wavelengths of light affect materials. Together with some students, Smedley, Evatt and Joy dreamed up an experiment.

They froze two roughly spherical and equally sized meteorites — one iron, one stony — in cubes of ice, specially prepared to contain no air bubbles, like real glacier ice. Then they stuck these in a huge walk-in freezer down the corridor from Smedley's office and shone a special lamp on the set-up to mimic the spectrum of light that comes from real sunlight.

They found that both meteorites sank. But the iron meteorite descended at 2.4 millimeters per hour, almost twice as quickly as the stony rock.

We know that in places where ice flow is impeded by mountain bedrock, meteorites buried in the ice are forced upwards. According to the calculations, this meant that as the iron meteorites get close to the surface of the ice and begin to absorb sunlight, they could plausibly begin to sink into the ice faster than the moving glacier could push them upwards. (The stony meteorites are subjected to that downward sinking drive too, but much less strongly, so that the upwelling pressure wins out and they are slowly thrust to the surface.)

The implication, the team thought, was that there could be a layer of iron meteorites hidden just beneath the surface of the ice sheets of Antarctica.

Extracted from "The Meteorite Hunters: On the Trail of Extraterrestrial Treasures and the Secrets Inside Them" by Joshua Howgego, published by Oneworld Publications.

The first and one of the most prolific meteor showers of 2025 will peak tonight, bringing super-bright fireballs and regular shooting stars.

The Quadrantid meteor shower is not particularly well known, running from Dec. 26, 2024, through Jan. 16, 2025, according to the American Meteor Society. That's largely because they occur for Northern Hemisphere observers during a time of cold and often cloudy weather.

However, if the skies are clear, about 25 shooting stars — some of them particularly bright fireballs that can momentarily light up the sky — may be seen during the peak, which will happen overnight on Thursday, Jan. 2, through Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. The peak is predicted for 12:45 p.m. on Jan. 3, meaning the best time to observe the showers is a couple of hours before sunrise on Jan. 3, though those farthest west will likely see the most meteors.

Related: The 10 best stargazing events of 2025

The Quadrantids occur thanks to the asteroid 2003 EH1, which orbits the sun every 5.5 years. From late December to mid-January, Earth moves through the streams of dust and debris it has left in the solar system over many decades. Between Jan. 3 and Jan. 4, it moves through the densest part of that stream, causing a peak in meteor rates.

Where to see the Quadrantid meteor shower

Astronomical conditions are perfect all night, with a crescent moon setting shortly after sunset on Jan. 2, meaning the night sky will be as dark as it ever gets. It's important before a meteor shower to avoid light pollution to better observe the light show, though likely cold conditions make that challenging.

Those in the Northern Hemisphere will have the best chance to see the Quadrantids because of their source constellation. Shooting stars result from dust and debris striking Earth's atmosphere. For the Quadrantid, that happens in front of the stars of Quadrans Muralis, a constellation that is no longer officially in use. Its shape resembles a quadrant — an instrument used to measure the altitude of stars above the horizon — and can be found close to Ursa Major, home to the Big Dipper asterism, in the northern sky as seen from the Northern Hemisphere.

The Quadrantids are also notable because there is no major meteor shower after them until April's Lyrids and May's Eta Aquariids.

The Geminid meteor shower peaked overnight on Dec. 13 and 14, lighting up the skies as impressive meteors struck Earth's atmosphere. But Earth wasn't the only target; the moon is regularly bombarded with such meteors, and Daichi Fujii, the curator of the Hiratsuka City Museum in Japan, has captured some of the most recent collisions.

Fujii documented meteor impacts on the moon on Dec. 6, Dec. 7 and twice on Dec. 8, 2024, using cameras set to monitor Earth's nearest neighbor. You can view some of his lunar impact videos (as well as some impressive fireballs) on his X account.

"There was another lunar impact flash tonight. I filmed it at 360fps from my home at 22:34:35 on December 8, 2024 (slow playback) and was able to confirm it with multiple telescopes. Bright meteors and fireballs have been appearing every day, but lunar impact flashes have also been captured one after another," Fujii wrote in a post on X on Dec. 8.

This isn't the first time Fuijii has witnessed such an impact. In February 2023, he recorded another impressive video of a meteor smashing into the moon.

Related: Ursid meteor shower 2024: Where and when to see the final meteor shower of the year

It's unclear if the recent lunar impacts captured by Fujii are the product of the Geminid meteor shower or simply the result of sporadic meteors. When asked about the possible origin of these meteors, Robert Lunsford, of the American Meteor Society, told EarthSky, "While it’s a bit early for strong Geminid activity, it's possible that these are Geminid meteors as they are striking the moon from the expected direction."

Lunsford suggested that, if they are indeed Geminid meteors, the rate of lunar strikes is quite extraordinary, as even during the Geminid maximum, it's more typical to see less than one visible strike per night.

Given the moon's history with Geminid impacts, there is a good chance that at least some of these meteor strikes were Geminids. In 2015, NASA published a study on Geminid meteor shower lunar impact observations and found 19 such strikes in 2006 and 21 in 2010. Astonishingly, 55% of all impacts witnessed on the moon in 2010 were attributed to the Geminids.

However, Fuijii is not ruling out the possibility that they are simply sporadic meteors. "Given the position of the radiant, there is a possibility that these lunar impact flashes are associated with the Geminid meteor shower. However, since sporadic meteors still outnumber Geminids in ground-based meteor observations, they may be sporadic meteors," Fujii told EarthSky.

Why do the impacts look like bright flashes?

As the moon has virtually no atmosphere, when an object strikes the moon it does so at high speeds with nothing to slow it down. When a meteoroid collides with the moon, most of the energy from the impact is converted into heat and the formation of a crater. A smaller amount of the energy, however, is released as visible light, creating a bright flash at the collision site, according to NASA

If you want to keep a watchful eye on our lunar companion check out our moon viewing guide. Looking for some new gear? Our best telescopes guide and best binoculars guide are a great place to start.

Originally posted on Space.com.

Meteoroids are tiny asteroids or bits of comets that become meteors when they burn up in a planet's atmosphere, and meteorites when they strike the surface intact.

Live Science tells you everything you need to know about these falling space rocks, with articles about how many meteorites hit Earth every year, guides on how to watch the Perseid meteor shower and other spectacular celestial events, and detailed coverage of meteoroid research, including studies of meteorites containing all of the building blocks of DNA, the world's first "boomerang meteorite" and the oldest evidence of a meteor hitting Earth. So, to become a space rock savant like our expert writers and editors, check out the latest meteoroid news, features and articles at Live Science.

Discover more about meteoroids

—What's the difference between asteroids, comets and meteors?

—Fallen stars: A gallery of famous meteorites

If you missed the peak of the Geminid meteor shower earlier this month, don't worry — there's still another chance to catch a "shooting star" display this year. The Ursid meteor shower will peak overnight from Dec. 21-22, right around the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.

Although the Ursids boast fewer meteors per hour than the Geminids, the Ursid meteor shower can produce some bright fireballs that are visible even on moonlit nights. So this meteor shower is still worthwhile, especially when viewed around midnight before moonrise.

This year, the Ursids will be visible from Dec. 17 to 26, peaking on the night of Dec. 21-22 with about 10 meteors per hour, according to EarthSky.org.

Related: 'Fireball' meteor discovered hours before exploding above Niagara Falls was the smallest asteroid ever seen

The Ursids are predicted to produce the most activity just before dawn, when the radiant — the point from which the meteors appear to emanate — reaches its highest point during nocturnal hours. The Ursids' radiant is the constellation Ursa Minor, also known as the Little Dipper. The Little Dipper is circumpolar — meaning it will be visible all night in the Northern Hemisphere — so the Ursids will be visible all night as well.

However, on the night of Dec. 21-22, the moon will be a waning gibbous (between 52% and 62% full) and will reach its highest point in the sky around 6 a.m. local time, threatening to outshine any meteors.

The moon doesn't start to rise until just before midnight local time, though. So, to get the best views, plan on looking for the Ursids around midnight, when the moon is still low in the sky. To see the most meteors, find a vantage point as far from artificial light as possible. Meteor showers are best viewed with the naked eye — no stargazing binoculars or backyard telescopes necessary.

Like most other meteor showers, the Ursids are caused by comet debris that passes through Earth's atmosphere. The Ursids' parent object is Comet 8P/Tuttle, which is about 3 miles (5 kilometers) wide and takes about 13.6 years to orbit the sun.

The first meteor shower of 2025 will be the Quadrantids, peaking on the night of Jan. 2-3.

The most prolific meteor shower of the year, the Geminids, will peak overnight tonight and tomorrow (Dec. 13 and 14). The only annual meteor shower that scientists know for sure is caused by an asteroid rather than a comet, the Geminids meteor shower's peak night will this year be somewhat dampened by the appearance of a near-full moon.

With December's full moon, the "Cold Moon," rising on Sunday, Dec. 15, it will already be above the horizon and shining brightly as the sun sets tonight. Skywatchers are unlikely to see as many of the (up to) 120 shooting stars per hour during the peak that many hope for — but this is still an event to be outside for around midnight.

For the best view, find a spot as far from artificial lights as possible, turn your back to the moon, and look up while allowing your eyes to adjust to the darkness. Meteor showers are best viewed with the naked eye; no skywatching binoculars or backyard telescopes necessary. (Due to the moon's bright glow, extensive travel for this shower is not advised.)

The strongest meteor shower of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, the Geminids are often bright and intensely colored, according to the American Meteor Society. Active from Monday, Dec. 2 to Saturday, Dec. 21, the Geminids tend to be yellow, according to NASA, but may also be white and green.

Related: The Geminid meteors may be 10 times older than we thought, simulations of oddball asteroid Phaethon suggest

The Geminids are caused by 3200 Phaethon, which is thought to be an asteroid. Each December, Earth crosses the asteroid's path; debris left in the wake of the asteroid tumbles through Earth's atmosphere, heating up and producing "shooting stars," or meteors. Discovered in 1982, asteroid Phaethon orbits the sun every 1.4 Earth years and displays a comet-like tail for a few days when the asteroid passes closest to the sun. That's unusual; asteroids, which are mostly rocky, do not typically form tails when they get close to the sun.

Research published in 2023 revealed that sodium gas is released from the minerals in 3200 Phaethon while carbon dioxide and water vapor cause enough pressure to lift small dust particles from its surface. Together, these two processes form its tail.

As the Geminids peak this year, 2024's final meteor shower will also be getting underway. The Ursids, which appear to come from Ursa Major — most famous for its shape of stars called the Big Dipper — runs from Friday, Dec. 13 through Tuesday, Dec. 24, peaking overnight on Saturday, Dec. 21 and Sunday, Dec. 22, when 5-10 shooting stars may be seen in darker night skies. On that peak night, the year's last quarter moon will rise after midnight.

Editor's note: This article was updated on Dec. 13 to reflect that the Geminids peak tonight and on Saturday.

A meteorite discovered in a drawer at a university in 1931 harbors evidence of liquid water on Mars 742 million years ago, new research suggests.

The Lafayette meteorite is a glassy chunk of space rock about 2 inches (5 centimeters) long. It was found at Purdue University nearly a century ago, and no one knew who discovered it or where it came from. It wasn't until the 1980s that researchers discovered that the gasses trapped inside the mysterious rock matched the Martian atmosphere as measured by NASA's Viking landers, according to Purdue University.

Researchers also learned in early studies of the meteorite that its minerals had interacted with liquid water during their formation. No one knew when those minerals had formed, though. Now, a new study, published Nov. 6 in the journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters, finds that they are less than a billion years old.

"We do not think there was abundant liquid water on the surface of Mars at this time," study lead author Marissa Tremblay, an assistant professor with the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University, said in a statement. "Instead, we think the water came from the melting of nearby subsurface ice called permafrost, and that the permafrost melting was caused by magmatic activity that still occurs periodically on Mars to the present day."

Related: Elon Musk said he's 'definitely going to be dead' before humans go to Mars — and you probably will be too

Tremblay and her colleagues used variations in molecules of argon within the minerals to determine the most precise age yet for the minerals' formation. They also considered the heating that the meteorite would have experienced when it flew off of Mars after an impact 11 million years ago, as well as the possible effects of its transit through space and subsequent trip through Earth's atmosphere.

Though the meteorite's precise time of arrival on Earth isn't known, researchers reported in 2022 that trace amounts of a crop fungus on the space rock's surface, combined with unconfirmed reports that a student witnessed the meteorite land during a fishing trip, suggest that the meteorite landed in 1919.

"The age could have been affected by the impact that ejected the Lafayette Meteorite from Mars, the heating Lafayette experienced during the 11 million years it was floating out in space, or the heating Lafayette experienced when it fell to Earth and burned up a little bit in Earth's atmosphere," Tremblay said. "But we were able to demonstrate that none of these things affected the age of aqueous alteration in Lafayette."

The confirmation of the date of the meteorite's interaction with liquid water doesn't just elucidate the past history of Mars. The same methods can also work on other meteorites found on Earth, or in samples brought back from missions to other planets, moons and asteroids.

"We have demonstrated a robust way to date alteration minerals in meteorites that can be applied to other meteorites and planetary bodies to understand when liquid water might have been present," Tremblay said.

The Leonid meteor shower is now peaking, and could bring up to 15 "shooting stars" per hour to the night sky.

This annual meteor shower occasionally causes "meteor storms" — rare events that produce more than 1,000 meteors per hour. The Leonids are thought to be caused by dust and debris left in the inner solar system by Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 33 Earth years.

This year, the predicted peak was just after midnight EST on Nov. 17-18 (05:00 UTC on Nov. 18), according to the American Meteor Society. About 15 meteors per hour are typically seen in a dark sky during the peak of the Leonids. However, the shower remains active until Dec. 2, and "shooting stars" may remain more prevalent than usual throughout the coming week.

Bright moonlight may determine how much you can see, as a 94%-illuminated waning gibbous moon has just risen into the night sky. Strong moonlight can make it more challenging to see fainter shooting stars, which means it won't help much to travel away from light pollution for the Leonids this year — even with artificial lights out of the picture, the moon's glow will still outshine most of the show.

Related: 'Crumb trails' of meteoroids could reveal potential 'planet-killer' comets years before they reach Earth

Although this year's peak is not expected to deliver a meteor storm, there's still a slight chance it could. These sudden outbursts of more than 1,000 meteors happened in 1833, 1866, 1966, 1999, 2001 and 2002, when Earth passed through old debris fields left in the inner solar system by 55P/Tempel-Tuttle while the comet was near perihelion, its closest point to the sun, according to the American Meteor Society. 55P/Tempel-Tuttle's next perihelion will be in 2031, according to NASA. But even before then, Earth could move through old debris fields that could spark a stronger display — though it's impossible to predict if or when that will happen.

Meteor showers are typically named after the constellation from which they appear to originate. For the Leonids, that's Leo. If you see a shooting star and trace its trajectory backward to Leo, it is a Leonid. However, all meteor showers' shooting stars can appear anywhere in the night sky.

Shooting "stars" are actually meteoroids — small, rocky particles that strike Earth's atmosphere. These tumbling particles heat up and vaporize, releasing energy visible as streaks of light in the night sky. You can see them best with the naked eye in dark skies; save your stargazing binoculars for the next full moon or planetary appearance.

Editor's note: This article was updated on Nov. 18 to add current information about the shower's peak.

Comets that rarely swing past the sun could ram into our planet, but we could spot them using the "crumb"-like meteoroid trails they leave behind, a new study suggests.

Many comets visit the solar system fairly often, at least on a cosmic timescale. Halley's Comet, for instance, whizzes past Earth every 76 years, with its last appearance in 1986.

But other comets, like October's A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, are much more infrequent visitors. Some of these objects, born in the solar system's outer fringes, are long-period comets (LPCs) that only come close to the sun every 200 years or more.

While LPCs may enthrall skywatchers, they're challenging for planetary defenders. Estimates indicate they may cause up to 6% of all impacts on Earth. However, few LPCs that could pose a threat — the ones whose orbits come within about 4.65 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) of Earth, or about one-twentieth the distance between Earth and the sun — have actually been discovered. Each of these potentially hazardous comets could pack a powerful punch. For instance, an asteroid with a diameter of 0.6 mile (1 km) traveling at 30 miles per second (50 kilometers per second) would impact Earth with the energy of 750,000 megatons of TNT.

But the new study proposes a way to detect LPCs: by following the "bread crumb" trails of meteoroids that these celestial Hansels have left behind. That's because when a comet approaches the sun, intense solar heat vaporizes much of its ice. This ejects the comet's rocks and dust into a meteoroid stream, whose path parallels the comet's. Plus, "streams from long period comets specifically aren't as prone to perturbations from the larger planets," Samantha Hemmelgarn, a graduate student at Northern Arizona University and the study's first author, told Live Science in an email.

Related: 'God of chaos' asteroid may be transformed by tremors and landslides during 2029 flyby of Earth, study finds

If Earth barges through the meteoroid streams, a portion may blaze through our planet's atmosphere as meteor showers. These streaks can reveal the meteoroids' speed and direction of travel, allowing scientists to extrapolate the streams and discover the parent comets. And while most LPCs are too faint for current observatories, the upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) — which will use the forthcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory's supervision — may detect these comets years before they pose a threat. Exactly how far in advance, however, wasn't clear.

To determine this and to test their theoretical strategy, the new study's authors turned to 17 meteor showers with known parent LPCs. Based on each shower's properties, the researchers generated a bunch of synthetic LPCs — one family for each meteoroid stream. Then, the team virtually placed the comet clusters at distances that would make them bright enough only for the Rubin Observatory to see. Finally, the researchers compared the locations of these synthetic comet families with the real comets' positions (when they would be as bright as their artificial counterparts) to see how well they matched.

The authors found that the positions of the actual parent comets largely lay within the clouds of synthetic comets, with most close to the centers of their respective artificial clusters. The researchers also found that back-projecting the meteoroid streams helped narrow down the area to look for parent comets. More importantly, they found that identifying comets as Earth impactors when they were billions of miles away gave years more warning time. Spotting large impactors this way could be especially helpful, buying more than a decade of prep time.

The scientists plan to use the new study's techniques and images from the LSST to hunt for the LPC parents of currently orphaned meteoroid streams, Hemmelgarn said. She noted that 247 meteoroid streams whose paths cross Earth's (listed in a 2023 guidebook co-authored by Peter Jenniskens, the study's senior author) belong to this category.

"Hopefully with LSST, we will be able to detect comets on Earth crossing orbits much sooner than we can now," she said.

However, even this technique has limitations. For example, it cannot pick out dangerous comets with an orbital period of more than 4,000 years, Hemmelgarn said, since "their meteor streams would be too dilute to be detected at Earth."

The study, which has been accepted for publication in The Planetary Science Journal, is available as a preprint via arXiv.

The North Taurid meteor shower peaks overnight tonight, bringing "shooting stars" to night skies worldwide.

The Taurids are two related and overlapping meteor showers that peak in November this year. First came the South Taurids, which run from Sept. 23 to Nov. 12 and peaked overnight on Nov. 4-5. Now come the North Taurids, which are active from Oct. 13 to Dec. 2 and peak overnight tonight, Nov. 11-12.

Although those are the peaks, both showers are long-lasting. That means they have broad peaks, during which about five shooting stars per hour can be expected. The two showers also merge, increasing your odds of seeing a wayward meteor this week.

The South and North Taurids may not be prolific in terms of the number of shooting stars, but what they do offer is fireballs. These exceptionally bright meteors can be seen over a very wide area, according to the Center for Near Earth Object Studies. Given their timing, these shooting stars are sometimes called "Halloween fireballs."

Related: Phew! No 'doomsday' asteroids hide in famous broken comet's debris stream

Both meteor showers result from debris left in the inner solar system by Comet 2P/Encke, which orbits the sun every 3.25 years — the shortest orbital period of any known comet in the solar system, according to NASA. It was last here in October 2023 and is due back in early 2027, but skywatchers can expect to see a showing of shooting stars from the comet's debris regardless of the year.

This year, the South Taurids are more likely to impress. The peak occurs while the moon is in its waxing crescent phase, meaning Earth's natural satellite will create little light pollution and dip below the horizon soon after sunset. That's not the case for the North Taurids, which peak under a waxing gibbous moon just a few nights before its full phase on Nov. 15. The strong moonlight in the night sky will make it tougher to see faint meteors, but it won't obscure the spectacular fireballs that are possible during both showers.

Although the South and North Taurids are visible throughout the sky, they appear to originate from the constellation Taurus, which rises in the east late at night during November. You do not need a pair of stargazing binoculars or a telescope to enjoy meteor showers; your naked eyes, if given some time to adjust to the darkness of night, will do just fine.

Editor's note: This article was updated on Nov. 11 to reflect that the peak of the South Taurids has passed while the peak of the North Taurids is about to begin.

Earth is constantly getting pummeled by meteorites. We are unaware of most of them, as they burn up in our atmosphere before they hit the ground. Every now and again, though, something larger gets drawn into Earth's gravitational field — and when this happens, it usually spells bad news for any life living on our planet's surface.

Scientists know that the vast majority of meteorites that come crashing down to Earth originate from the solar system's main asteroid belt: a region between Mars and Jupiter where irregularly shaped rocks left over from the formation of the solar system crash into and bounce off each other during their journeys around the sun.

In new research, however, an international team of scientists are claiming to have identified three young, distinct asteroid families in the main asteroid belt as the source of 70% of Earth's meteorites. "Asteroid families" refer to a population of asteroids, which could be composed of a handful or hundreds of fragments that likely originate from a past asteroid collision.

Using a telescopic survey to determine the composition of the main families of asteroids in the main asteroid belt and tapping into computer simulations to map the colossians and evolution of these families, researchers were able to reveal which three families the vast majority of Earth's meteorites likely come from.

Related: 200 meteorites on Earth traced to 5 craters on Mars

Namely, they originate from the Karin, Koronis and Massalia asteroid families, which formed from collisions in the main asteroid belt that occurred about 5.8 million, 7.5 million and 40 million years ago, respectively. In particular, the Massalia family is said to be responsible for 37% of known Earth meteorites.

Until now, 6% of meteorites had been identified ( via their compositions) as coming from the moon, Mars or Vesta, which is one of the largest objects in the main asteroid belt. Where the other 94% originated from had remained something of a mystery.

So, why are these young asteroid families the source of so many meteorites? Younger families of asteroids, broken up by relatively recent collisions, are composed of more fragments, which means they are more likely to have fragments that escape the main asteroid belt, possibly in the direction of Earth. As time rolls on, families get older and slowly lose their fragments, becoming less of a source for meteorites.

Nonetheless, let's hope there isn't a kilometer-size asteroid waiting in the main belt with our name on it.

Originally posted on Space.com.

A huge fireball meteor shot across the sky above Lake Erie just after sunset Monday (Oct. 21), videos show.

Witnesses in 10 states, stretching from Michigan to North Carolina, reported spotting the blazing meteor around 7 p.m. ET. So far, the American Meteor Society (AMS) has received 534 reports of the fiery space rock. Experts estimated the meteor's trajectory and found that it likely ended just offshore from Erie, Pennsylvania.

The fireball occurred at an altitude of about 50 miles (80 kilometers), meaning it was visible across several U.S. states and in Canada, EarthSky reported. This fireball is one of the largest documented in recent months, according to the website.

Footage of the fireball was captured by Brad Hague (above) and Ryan Connor (below) among other witnesses.

It appears to have been a random event and unrelated to the currently active Taurid meteor shower. The Taurids peak from late October to mid-November and can produce a handful of visible events per hour, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com.

Related: Asteroid slams into Earth triggering stunning green 'fireball' above the Philippines — 8 hours after it was 1st spotted

Monday's fireball zipped across the sky from west to east, first appearing offshore in Lake County, Ohio. Its estimated trajectory, mapped by the AMS, shows it covered a distance of roughly 60 miles (100 km) above Lake Erie — the fourth-largest by surface area of North America's five great lakes.

Fireballs are exceptionally bright meteors, and meteors are space rocks that enter Earth's atmosphere. As they do so, the rock burns up, creating a streak of light. Fireballs occur every day across the world, but they are a rare spectacle to witness, because they are over in a flash and often camouflaged by daylight.

A recent "daylight" fireball over New York City was seen by only a few dozen people but heard by hundreds due to a loud boom that resounded as far as New Jersey. The meteor likely created the boom as it crashed through Earth's atmosphere, experts said.

The annual Orionid meteor shower — a dusty result of the trip Halley's comet makes around the sun every 76 years, on average — will peak this week just as the famous constellation it's named after rises into the autumn sky.

Active from Sept. 26 through Nov. 22, the Orionids will peak in the early hours of Monday, Oct. 21, when around 23 "shooting stars" are expected per hour, according to the American Meteor Society. The precise peak is predicted to occur at 1 a.m. EDT (0500 GMT).

However, a waning gibbous moon will be in the sky for most of the night, providing less-than-ideal viewing conditions. (The full "Hunter's moon" rises days before, on Oct. 17.) According to the American Meteor Society, the bright moonlight will "severely hamper" views of this display. Therefore, you probably won't want to bother finding dark skies to view this year's event. Rather, it may be more advantageous to watch the 2024 Orionids from home, where you can hope to see a particularly bright shooting star.

According to NASA, the Orionids are one of the most beautiful showers of the year. These meteors are known for their brightness and speed. The Orionids are swift movers, predicted to strike Earth's atmosphere at 41 miles per second (66 kilometers per second), or around 148,000 mph (238,000 km/h).

Related: Halley's comet has begun its return journey to Earth

Meteor showers are caused by clouds of dust and debris left in the inner solar system by comets as they enter and leave to loop around the sun. As Earth flies through them, its atmosphere strikes the material, causing shooting stars.

The Orionids are one of two annual meteor showers caused by Halley's comet, the only known naked-eye comet that can theoretically be seen twice in one human lifetime. Last in the inner solar system in 1986 and next due to visit in 2061, Halley's comet also causes the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, which peaks in early May each year. Both showers can be seen from both the Southern and Northern hemispheres.

Despite their far-off origin, the Orionids appear to come from a patch of sky close to Betelgeuse, a red giant star in the constellation Orion. The constellation is best known for Orion's Belt, which comprises three equally spaced stars: Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. Also in the region are some of the brightest stars in the night sky, such as Sirius, Rigel, Procyon and Capella. Orion will reach its highest point in the sky around 2 a.m. in the Northern Hemisphere during the peak of the Orionids.

On Tuesday and Wednesday (Oct. 8 and 9), the night skies may be peppered with "shooting stars" during the annual Draconid meteor shower.

Although it's not expected to be one of the year's best meteor showers, a special feature of the Draconids makes them hugely appealing to skywatchers: While most meteor showers are best observed in the early predawn hours, Draconid meteors can appear anytime after dark.

That's because their radiant point — the constellation from which they appear to originate — is Draco, the dragon, which can be found in the northern sky. Draco is a circumpolar constellation, meaning it appears to revolve around Polaris, the North Star, once every 24 hours. Draco is, therefore, always visible in the Northern Hemisphere under clear skies.

According to the American Meteor Society, the Draconids are a variable meteor shower, meaning a modest display of shooting stars is expected, with a slight chance of strong activity. The Draconids typically produce about 10 meteors per hour during the shower's peak, according to EarthSky.org. That makes the evening of Oct. 8 an excellent opportunity to go stargazing with the potential to see a few shooting stars.

Related: The best meteor showers of 2024 are yet to come. Here are the key nights to watch for.

As one of the largest northern constellations, Draco is best visualized this time of the year as a zigzagging serpent's tail, forming a vague Z shape above the Big Dipper in the north-northwest sky. The constellation is home to deep-sky sights, including the stunning Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543), the Tadpole Galaxy (UGC 10214) and the Spindle Galaxy (M102), according to Constellation-Guide.com.

The timing for the peak of the Draconid meteor shower is favorable for skywatchers. On Oct. 8, a waxing crescent moon will be visible with Venus in the west, which will sink a few hours after sunset. That means it doesn't matter when you look north, since there will be little moonlight to bleach the sky.

Like all meteor showers, the Draconids occur when Earth passes through a cloud of rocky debris left behind by a comet. In this case, that's Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, which passes through the solar system and crosses Earth's orbit once every 6.5 years, according to NASA.

A new video from an astronaut's vantage point in space catures a bright green burst over Earth as a meteor exploded in the night sky.

NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick, commander of the SpaceX Crew-8 mission, shared a new time-lapse of photos taken from the International Space Station as it passed over Cairo, Egypt. While aiming to photograph the Milky Way's Core, Dominick ended up capturing a bright green fireball that exploded on Monday (Sept. 2) at 8:12 p.m. EDT (2012 GMT).

The outburst seen in the time-lapse was created by a meteor that entered Earth's atmosphere and burned up. Dominick shared the new view in a post on X (formally Twitter) on Sept. 3.

"I showed this to a couple of friends yesterday to see what they thought," Dominick wrote in his post. "They both thought it was a meteor exploding in the atmosphere — a rather bright one called a bolide."

Dominick shared two versions of the timelapse. In his initial post, the timelapse was slowed down to one frame per second, offering a more detailed view of the fleeting meteor as it streaked across the sky and then exploded. In the comments, Dominick shared a faster version, in which the meteor appears as only a very brief flash in the top right of the frame.

Related: Asteroid 10 times bigger than the dinosaur-killing space rock smashed Jupiter's largest moon off its axis

Given the exceptional brightness of the meteor, it is considered a bolide, which is a large meteor that explodes in Earth's atmosphere with enough force to create a sonic boom. This type of meteor can last several seconds, or even minutes, and create a bright glow across the sky that outshines the stars and moon.

"I think it is interesting to compare the size of the bolide blast to other objects in view like the Mediterranean, Cairo, or lightning strikes," Dominick commented.

The timelapse includes 20 individual images taken from inside of the space station's Cupola module.

"When I went to review the shots afterwards I found the bolide," Dominick said in his post.

Dominick has been a prolific photographer during his stay aboard the ISS as part of the SpaceX Crew-8 mission. The NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy test pilot has captured auroras, several meteors exploding above Earth and more on camera during his stay on the orbital lab.

Originally posted on Space.com.

One of the most prolific annual meteor showers of the year, the Perseids, peaks tonight, bringing up to 75 "shooting stars" per hour to the sky in some parts of the world. Although the U.S. saw its peak last night (Sunday Aug. 11), many streaking meteors will still be visible overhead tonight for those in suitably dark areas.

Although bright meteors are expected, the display can be significantly affected by strong moonlight. But this year, the moon will set just as strong activity begins to occur from the Perseids, according to the American Meteor Society. The best time to look will be after 1 a.m. local time. 

Update: Auroras may also join the show in many parts of the world, as a powerful geomagnetic storm will make the Northern Lights visible at lower latitudes than usual, including in more than a dozen states near the U.S.-Canada border, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administation.

Shooting stars are caused by meteoroids. As these tiny particles enter Earth's atmosphere, they heat up and vaporize, releasing energy visible as streaks of light in the night sky. The Perseids move at a swift 37 miles per second (60 kilometers per second), and there are typically between 50 and 75 visible each hour during the peak night. That’s about one per minute, though you'll need to be as far away from light pollution as possible to see an impressive number of shooting stars.

Related: The 1st week of August is a stargazer's delight. Here's why.

The Perseid meteor shower is known for its fast and bright meteors, according to NASA. The meteors appear to emanate from the constellation Perseus, which is how they get their name. This constellation will rise high in the northwestern sky in the Northern Hemisphere in the hours after midnight, when the most shooting stars are expected to be seen. Also visible in this region of the sky is the Andromeda Galaxy, above Perseus, and the Pleiades, above Mars and Jupiter. 

Although tonight's peak offers the highest frequency of meteors, the Perseids are active from July 14 to Sept. 1, 2024, and "shooting stars" can be seen every night.

The visibility of shooting stars depends a lot on the moon's phases. Luckily, on Monday, Aug. 12, a half-lit moon will set about an hour after midnight local time across the Northern Hemisphere, meaning no strong moonlight will interfere with the peak of the Perseids this year. A clear, dark sky is required to see the meteors. 

Stargazing binoculars and backyard telescopes are not recommended for seeing meteor showers, as you'll want to let your eyes take in the whole sky to search for shooting stars. However, you'll want to have your stargazing gear ready for other night sky events this year, including planetary conjunctions, supermoons and potentially a very rare comet flyby.

According to NASA, Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle is the root cause of the Perseid meteor shower. It last entered the inner solar system in 1992 and will enter it again in 2125. 

Editor's note: This article was updated on Monday (Aug. 12) with current information about the Perseids' peak.

A meteor crashed through Earth's atmosphere Tuesday (July 16) morning, creating loud booms that resounded over parts of New York City and New Jersey, NASA says.

Preliminary estimates initially suggested the meteor was traveling northeast and passed over the Statue of Liberty around 11:17 a.m. ET before disintegrating above midtown Manhattan. Those estimates, which were based on accounts of a fireball in the sky, booms and tremors, suggested the meteor entered Earth's atmosphere above Upper Bay and descended toward the city at speeds of about 34,000 mph (54,500 km/h).

But as people filed more reports of the event throughout the day, NASA updated the meteor's modeled trajectory. "We now have the meteor originating over New York City and moving west into New Jersey," representatives of NASA Meteor Watch wrote in a Facebook post. "Speed has bumped up a bit to 38,000 miles per hour [61,200 km/h]."

The meteor was small, likely no more than 1 foot (0.3 meters) in diameter, William Cooke, a meteoroid environment program manager at NASA, told ABC7 New York. It turned into a fireball due to the heat generated by its high speed, he said, adding that "you expect to see meteors at night [but] not during the day, so this is a rare daylight fireball."

Related: Delta Aquariids 2024: July's next meteor shower offers ideal conditions for 'shooting stars'

Footage of the fireball was shared by a resident in Northford, Connecticut, to the American Meteor Society. The video shows a short white streak zipping across blue skies.

The fireball produced no meteorites, according to ABC7 New York — meaning no fragments of the space rock reached the ground — and there were no reports of damage or injuries related to the event.

While some people saw the fireball firsthand, others only heard a booming sound. Residents of Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and northern New Jersey noticed a loud rumbling accompanied by shaking, ABC7 New York reported. "The golden retriever jumped out of his skin and the cat just darted under the sofa," Steven Bradley, from Park Ridge in New Jersey, told the broadcaster.

High temperatures on Tuesday morning may have helped the sound from the meteor travel farther than expected, meteorologists told ABC7 New York. Sound waves move more quickly through warm air than cold air because air molecules at higher temperatures have more energy and vibrate faster.

But the loud boom may have come from a completely unrelated source, such as military activities that were happening at the same time in New Jersey, Cooke said.

The Delta Aquariid meteor shower will soon light up Earth's skies. Though it's not one of the most prolific annual meteor showers, the peak of the Delta Aquariids occurs under ideal conditions this year. It also arrives while a few other meteor showers are underway, including the Perseid meteor shower.

This year, the Delta Aquariids are active between July 18 and Aug. 21 — peaking on the night of July 29-30, according to the American Meteor Society. However, this meteor shower has a broad peak. That's good news for skywatchers, because its maximum rate of "shooting stars" tends to last a few nights on each side of the technical peak date. Its shooting stars also tend to move rather slowly, which makes them easier to see.

Conditions for the peak nights of the Delta Aquariids this year are good. It's always important to look for meteors only when the moon is down because that's the only time the sky is dark enough to see them easily. July's full Buck Moon rises on July 21, well before the shower's peak. By July 28, the moon will reach its last-quarter phase, which means it will rise after midnight and then continue to rise about 50 minutes later on each successive evening. That makes the hour before and after midnight the best time to observe this year's Delta Aquariids across the Northern Hemisphere.

Related: The Milky Way will be visible without a telescope this summer. Here are the key nights to watch for.

All meteor showers are named after the constellation from which their "shooting stars" appear to originate. In the case of the Delta Aquariids, that's the constellation Aquarius, which is in the southern sky between the constellations Capricornus and Pisces. Because of its position in the southern sky, the Delta Aquariids are best viewed from the Southern Hemisphere.

Shooting stars are meteoroids — small, rocky particles that strike Earth's atmosphere. These tumbling particles heat up and vaporize, releasing energy visible as streaks of light in the night sky. The Delta Aquariid meteor shower is caused by dust and debris left in the inner solar system by a complex of comets called 96P/Machholz. As many as 20 meteors are expected each hour during the peak of the Delta Aquariids. 

One of the year's most prolific and popular meteor showers, the Perseids, will overlap slightly with the Delta Aquariids, running from July 14 through Sept. 1 and peaking in the early hours of Aug. 12 this year. Both showers are best viewed with the naked eye — but summer is a great time to get into stargazing with a new pair of binoculars or a good backyard telescope, while an array of planets, supermoons and comets are headed for a night sky near you.

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower will peak this weekend, bringing up to 50 "shooting stars" per hour to the sky Saturday night and early Sunday (May 4 - 5). The annual meteor shower may have increased rates this year thanks to the gravitational influence of Jupiter, according to the American Meteor Society.

"Shooting stars" are caused by meteoroids. As these tiny particles strike Earth's atmosphere, they heat up and vaporize, releasing energy visible as streaks of light in the night sky. The Eta Aquarids move at a swift 40.7 miles per second (65.5 kilometers per second), and there are typically between 10 and 30 visible each hour during the peak night. 

Fast meteors can leave glowing "trains" that last several seconds to minutes, according to NASA. The Eta Aquarid meteors appear to emanate from the constellation Aquarius, which is where they got their name. This constellation is higher in the sky in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Northern Hemisphere, so "Earthgrazers" — meteors that skim the horizon — are likely to be seen north of the equator. 

Although this weekend's peak offers the highest frequency of meteors, the Eta Aquarids are active from April 15 to May 27.

Related: Thousands of hidden meteorites could be lost forever as they sink in Antarctic ice, taking their cosmic secrets with them

The visibility of shooting stars depends a lot on the moon's phases. Luckily, a waning crescent moon will rise just before sunrise on May 5, meaning no strong moonlight will interfere with the peak of the Eta Aquarids this year. That makes it a good year to find a location with as little light pollution as possible, though a clear sky is also required. Stargazing binoculars and backyard telescopes are generally not recommended for seeing meteor showers, as you'll want to let your eyes take in the whole sky to search for shooting stars.

The root cause of the Eta Aquarids is Halley's comet, which last entered the inner solar system in 1986 and will enter it next in 2061. The comet reached its furthest point from the sun in December 2023, and is now headed our way again.

For the best chance to see "shooting stars," be out in the predawn hours and allow your eyes to adjust to the darkness. Night vision can take about 30 minutes to develop.

The Lyrid meteor shower has officially begun and the sky show's spectacular peak, which could see hundreds of shooting stars and "fireballs" fill the night sky, is scheduled to begin later this week. But what are the Lyrids? When exactly do they peak? And where is the best place to look for them? 

The Lyrids, which were first observed by humans around 2,700 years ago, are one of the oldest meteor showers on record, according to NASA. They are not quite as magnificent as some other meteor showers, such as the Perseids. However, at their best, the Lyrids are known to produce bright exploding space rocks, known as fireball meteors, and leave persistent trails of light, known as meteor trains, that remain in the sky for several seconds.

These meteors come from the dusty trail left behind by Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher, which orbits the sun every 415.5 years. Once a year, Earth passes through the comet's expansive debris field, causing disconnected chunks of the comet to burn up in our atmosphere, giving the impression of shooting stars racing across the night sky.

The annual event normally lasts for around two weeks in April but is most prominent during a roughly day-long peak. This year, the Lyrids began on April 15 and will continue until April 29. However, they will peak between Sunday (April 21) and Monday (April 22). 

Normally, dozens of meteors light up the sky every hour during this period, according to NASA. But this shower is also known for rare surges that can bring as many as 100 meteors an hour. However, this has only happened a handful of times over the last 200 years.

Related: How many meteorites hit Earth every year?

Unfortunately, this year's peak coincides with an almost full "pink moon," which will become full on April 23. As a result, the light from our cosmic companion will obscure most of the peak, meaning the meteors will likely not be as spectacular as in other years, EarthSky reported. 

But don't let this put you off. 

The best time to see the Lyrids will be just before dawn on April 22 when the moon is at its lowest. At this point, you should still be able to see dozens of bright meteors — as long as there isn't too much cloud cover or light pollution near you.

The shower is best viewed with the naked eye anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere. Even the best telescopes and stargazing binoculars will only impede your view during a meteor shower — though there will be plenty of other great stargazing opportunities in 2024 to use them.

The meteors' radiant — the point in the sky where they appear to be coming from — is around Vega in the constellation Lyra, also known as the Harp — but they can appear anywhere in the sky. Vega is one of the brightest stars in the sky so it shouldn't be too hard to find. However, NASA recommends that you look slightly away from the radiant so you can see longer, stretched-out shooting stars. If you look head-on, they will appear to be much more truncated.

For the best views, head to a viewing spot away from city lights. You can consult a light pollution map to find dark areas with the best chances of seeing the shooting stars.

If you miss the peak, don't worry. If you go outside on the nights either side of the peak and look up for at least half an hour or so, you should still be able to spot at least one of these space rocks twinkle in the sky as they die a fiery death.

Hundreds of thousands of pristine meteorites are currently littered across, or just below, Antarctica's icy surface. But most of these space rocks could be lost forever over the next few decades as they sink further into the ice due to rising temperatures, a new study suggests. 

That means we need to step up our efforts to find them before they disappear for good, the study authors argue.

Antarctica has been bombarded by meteorites for millions of years. Most of these space rocks have already sunk deep into the ice, never to be seen again. However, in certain parts of the continent, known as "blue ice areas," trapped meteorites are freed from their icy prison as wind and sunlight strip away the top layers of frozen water. Some of these meteorites may have been trapped there for tens of thousands of years. 

Antarctica's blue ice areas are, therefore, some of the best places in the world to hunt for meteorites. There are about 600 of these areas in Antarctica, which cover around 1% of the continent's surface area. 

Around 50,000 meteorites have already been found in Antarctica, which is around 60% of known meteorites ever collected worldwide. Most of these space rocks are less than an inch in diameter but some are much more massive. For example, in January 2023, researchers discovered an Antarctic meteorite weighing a whopping 17 pounds (7.7 kilograms) — one of the heaviest space rocks ever found on the continent. 

Regardless of their size, analyzing these space rocks can help researchers uncover secrets about the origin and evolution of the solar system. Antarctic meteorites are especially useful to scientists because they are well preserved in the ice. Most meteorites that land in other regions quickly become contaminated by minerals, microbes or people after they hit the ground. 

Related: How many meteorites hit Earth every year?

However, just because these meteorites lie at the surface doesn't mean they stay there forever. Due to their dark color, the space rocks soak up sunlight, which heats them up. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. But at high surface air temperatures, this warming may melt the surrounding ice and cause meteorites to sink below the surface.

In the past, this melt would have been very rare. But with rising global temperatures due to human-caused climate change, meteorites are sinking much more often than before. 

In the new study, published April 8 in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers used machine learning — a form of artificial intelligence — to predict how many meteorites could be lost as a result of global warming.

The team's model estimates that there are likely up to 850,000 meteorites on or near the surface of blue ice areas in Antarctica.

At current temperatures, the researchers suspect that as many as 5,000 Antarctic meteorites are already sinking out of reach every year. Meanwhile, researchers find fewer than 1,000 meteorites across the continent every year, the team noted. 

As temperatures increase further in the coming decades more meteorites will start to sink. Without any further warming, roughly a quarter of meteorites could be lost by the end of the century, researchers wrote. But in the most extreme warming scenarios, three-quarters could be lost, they added.

As further warming is guaranteed unless we immediately stop producing greenhouse gases, time is therefore running out to scoop up these space rocks and "preserve the information that each additional sample contains," the researchers wrote.

The Quadrantid meteor shower will peak this week and could bring up to 120 shooting stars per hour to the night sky.

It has the potential to be the strongest meteor shower of 2024, according to the American Meteor Society, but with such a short peak — just six hours — the shower's climax can often occur in daylight.

This year, the predicted peak is 7:53 a.m. EST (12:53 GMT) on Jan. 4, according to EarthSky. That makes the pre-dawn hours — from around 4:53 a.m. EST to dawn — the best time to observe the shower from North America. Those in western regions of the continent will have the best chance to watch for Quadrantids earlier at night. (If you got a new pair of stargazing binoculars or a nice beginner telescope for the holidays, they sadly will not help you spot any fast-moving meteors. However, here are the best skywatching events of 2024 to look forward to.)

About 25 shooting stars per hour are typically seen in a dark sky during the peak of the Quadrantids, according to the American Meteor Society. However, it's likely not worth traveling to dark skies for this event in 2024 because a bright last quarter moon will be in the sky just as the Quadrantids peak. Moonlight bleaches the sky and makes it more challenging to see fainter shooting stars, though the Quadrantids are known to produce bright fireballs that cut through light pollution of all kinds.

Meteor showers are typically named after the constellation from which they appear to come from. In the case of the Quadrantids, that's the constellation of Quadrans Muralis, though it is no longer recognized as a constellation. It's between the constellations of Bootes and Draco, near the end of the handle of the Big Dipper in the northern sky, according to NASA. Because of its position in the sky, the Quadrantid meteor shower is only visible in the Northern Hemisphere.

Shooting stars are meteoroids — small, rocky particles that strike Earth's atmosphere. These tumbling particles heat up and vaporize, releasing energy that's visible as streaks of light in the night sky. The Quadrantid meteor shower is thought to be caused by dust and debris left in the inner solar system by the asteroid 2003 EH1, which orbits the sun every 5.5 Earth years.

Editor's note: This article was updated on Jan. 2 to replace an image showing an inaccurate portrayal of meteor showers. We apologize for this error.