We are now entering the season of shooting stars and meteor showers. On the evening of Monday night and into Tuesday before dawn, we will experience the Delta Aquarid Meteor Shower. The shower is the first of two. The more popular meteor shower, the Perseid Meteor Shower, peaks on Tuesday night, August 11.

The nights between these two radiants are a fine time to look for errant meteors.

There is a big difference between a meteor and a comet. A comet is a small icy asteroid moving through space, usually from the far reaches of our solar system. They are made up of frozen gases and space debris held precariously together in the shape of an object. As they move through space the sun melts the gases and waters and that creates a tail.

A meteor is a tiny piece of space debris, no bigger than a dime, that enters our Earth’s atmosphere and for a fraction of a minute it glows, burns up and then disappears.
A comet can be watched for weeks as it comes within proximity of our sun and our earth. Comets last longer than recorded time. Meteors are a flash in the frying pan of our atmosphere.

Meteor showers are the remnants of comets that have sped through our space. To watch the Delta Aquarids look up in the sky towards the northeast and be prepared for an outer space fire fly speeding across the sky.