Never-Before-Seen Meteor Shower Approaches

Meteor showers often repeat as the Earth passes through clouds of dust and other fall-off from comets and large meteors again and again. However, our skies are about to be graced by a new, never-before-seen shower as the comet 209P/LINEAR starts to shed pieces of ice and rock as it draws closer to the Sun.

The head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, Dr. Bill Cooke, said that he will be outside watching this potentially historical moment in its entirety.

"We expect these meteors to radiate from a point in Camelopardalis, also known as 'the giraffe', a faint constellation near the North Star," he said in a NASA press release.  "It will be up all night long for anyone who wishes to watch throughout the night."

The shower, called the May Camelopardalids meteor shower, is scheduled to take place between 6:00 and 8:00 Universal Time (2 - 4 a.m. EDT) on May 24 (the night of May 23).

According to Cook, in 2012 meteor experts determined that a shower would occur around this time, projecting that the Earth was due for an encounter with the comet tail debris of 209P/LINEAR. The pair of experts who determined this, Esko Lyytinen of Finland and Peter Jenniskens at NASA Ames Research Center, said that there is even potential for a meteor storm, as this will be the first time the Earth will be passing through the cloud of comet fall-off.

A "meteor storm," or meteor outburst, occurs when thousands upon thousands of lights streak across the sky at once when a significant amount of dust and fall-off burns up in the Earth's atmosphere. These impressive showers are relatively rare, seen mostly during Leonids meteor showers, coined the "King of Meteor Showers" due to its impressive repeat displays.

There is not expected to be another Leonids shower until 2028, Space.com reports.