California Skies Could Cap Memorial Day With a Visual Treat, NASA Says

Jeremy Bailey
·1 min read
2

If you’re still commemorating Memorial Day on Monday night in California, put this on your agenda.

NASA says a meteor shower could enhance the skies around 10 o’clock local time.

While NASA warns the celestial event may not live up to the hype, astronomers say the Earth is set to pass through the fragments of a broken comet called 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann, or SW3, on Monday night and Tuesday morning.

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The byproducts of this will be the tau Herculids meteor shower.

The remaining intact parts of the SW3 comet, which broke up in 1995, will travel through this part of the solar system in August, according to NASA’s Lee Mohon.

“We can’t be certain what we’ll see,” Mohon wrote of the meteor shower. “We can only hope it’s spectacular.”

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The optimal conditions for the potential light show include clear, dark skies, which will be improved by a moonless night. The peak time to watch on the East Coast is 1 a.m. ET, NASA says.

“If the fragments were ejected with speeds greater than twice the normal speeds — fast enough to reach Earth — we might get a meteor shower,” Mohon wrote.