Jamie Carter is a freelance journalist and regular Live Science contributor based in Cardiff, U.K. He is the author of A Stargazing Program For Beginners and lectures on astronomy and the natural world. Jamie regularly writes for Space.com, TechRadar.com, Forbes Science, BBC Wildlife magazine and Scientific American, and many others.
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 . The annual meteor shower may have increased rates this year thanks to the gravitational influence of Jupiter, according to the American Meteor Society.
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.
Related: Thousands of hidden meteorites could be lost forever as they sink in Antarctic ice, taking their cosmic secrets with them—World's 1st 'boomerang meteorite' — a rock that left Earth then returned — possibly discovered in the Sahara DesertThe 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.
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