A meteor shower will arrive TOMORROW as the Earth crosses the debris of Halley's Comet | Science | New



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Bank Day Weekend will begin with a parade of shooting stars, while Eta Aquarid's annual meteor shower will begin to peak on Saturday, May 4th with ice and comet dust Earth's atmosphere, causing them to burn. The Space Weather cosmic forecast site said: "The best time to watch is during the dark hours before sunrise. Eta Aquarids are fast and move at 66 km / s (148,000 mph) and often trace long, bright paths in the sky. "

The peak of the meteorite rain is expected to last from May 4 to May 6, and the Met Office believes that the sky will be clear, especially in southern England.

A spokesman for the Met Office told Express.co.uk: "The night of June 5 to 6, the night of December 5 to 6, with a colder air mass, it should be nice and clear, with some clouds and some showers.

"There is also a risk of fragmented clouds, but the more cloudy the south, the greater the risk of clear skies."

Halley's Comet, arguably the most famous of all known comets, takes between 75 and 76 years to orbit the sun, but often approaches the Earth.

When this happens, part of the cometary branching – which is usually as small as a grain of sand – is consumed in the Earth's atmosphere, allowing people to see the spectacular shooting stars.

Halley's Comet creates a shower in May – the Eta Aquarid shower – and another in October – the Orionids meteor shower.

It is thought that the comet was first observed 2,200 years ago, but it was not until the astronomer Edmond Halley in 1705 that she was officially recognized.

The astronomer was the first scientist to correctly predict the return of the comet in 1758 and Halley was honored to have christened the comet in his honor.

But the comet has been sighted by different civilizations "for millennia" and was even spotted at the Battle of Hastings – the show was sewn into the Bayeux tapestry.

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