Uploaded May 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The Taurid meteor shower is due to Earth passing through debris from the comet Encke in June/July every year. If there are bigger chunks of material in this swarm they may be visible from Earth during the 2019 shower. This animation shows a simulation of the motion of these as-yet hypothetical objects across the sky as seen from Earth. Constellations are marked. Also included are the motion of the Moon and the position of the Milky Way. The circle around the Sun marks the visibility; anything inside this circle is too close to the Sun to be seen. Color represents brightness (red is brightest, blue dimmest). Even objects 100 meters in size will need very large telescopes to spot, but a survey of the sky during these times will help us determine if these larger chunks even exist. There is a hypothesis that the Tunguska impact of 1908 may have been from a 45-meter chunk from this swarm, so these observations may help determine whether this idea holds water or not.
Credit: David Clark, University of Western Ontario
Original video: astro.uwo.ca/~dclark56/tauridswarm/arxiv
The Taurid meteor shower is due to Earth passing through debris from the comet Encke in June/July every year. If there are bigger chunks of material in this swarm they may be visible from Earth during the 2019 shower. This animation shows a simulation of the motion of these as-yet hypothetical objects across the sky as seen from Earth. Constellations are marked. Also included are the motion of the Moon and the position of the Milky Way. The circle around the Sun marks the visibility; anything inside this circle is too close to the Sun to be seen. Color represents brightness (red is brightest, blue dimmest). Even objects 100 meters in size will need very large telescopes to spot, but a survey of the sky during these times will help us determine if these larger chunks even exist. There is a hypothesis that the Tunguska impact of 1908 may have been from a 45-meter chunk from this swarm, so these observations may help determine whether this idea holds water or not.
Credit: David Clark, University of Western Ontario
Original video: astro.uwo.ca/~dclark56/tauridswarm/arxiv
