The Orionid meteor shower will be visible in Phoenix after midnight through early Tuesday morning. We see this shower because Earth’s passes through a stream of debris from Halley’s Comet.
Professor Brian Rachford at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott said, “A dust particle comes into the atmosphere and, as it gets lower and lower into the atmosphere, it gets dramatically heated by friction and that causes the glowing light and the particle basically completely dissipates on its way in.”
The shower happens around the same time every year. Rachford said the best place to see it is away from city and street lights and looking to the southern part of the sky. But if those conditions aren’t an option for you, you can also watch NASA’s webcast of the event.
