Never-before-seen meteor shower may light up Utah’s sky Monday

Infrared image of Comet SW3 taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope in 2006. The comet has been breaking up since 1995, providing possible conditions for a meteor shower Monday night | NASA, JPL, Caltech, St. George News

SALT LAKE CITY — Patience might pay off for stargazers Monday night, as a new meteor shower with the potential of lighting up the sky in a dramatic fashion may appear.

Astronomers suspect the material from a small comet, SW3, may cause a significant meteor shower, called the Tau Herculids, which will peak around 11 p.m. Monday, according to space.com.

Space.com columnist Joe Rao indicates the shower may have the intensity of stronger annual meteor showers. These showers are known to produce up to a hundred meteors per hour, as indicated in a rundown of 2022 meteor showers by the same space blog.

As an added bonus, there is a small possibility the Tau Herculids could whip itself up to a larger meteor outburst or storm, where thousands of meteors per hour could be seen streaming out of the night sky, Rao explains in his article.

Read the full story here: KSL News.

By RYAN BOYCE, for KSL.com.

Copyright KSL.com.

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