Tech – Metro | Draconids meteor shower peaks tonight – don’t miss the celestial spectacle

The night sky over Russky Island in Russia during the Draconid meteor shower. (Yuri Smityuk/TASS)

The Draconids meteor shower could set the night sky ablaze with shooting stars as it peaks tonight and tomorrow night.

The annual meteor shower brings with it a chance to get out and see shooting stars form across the night sky – providing the weather doesn't interfere.

Sometimes as many as 1,000 shooting stars per hour are on display during the Draconid shower, however in reality it's likely to be more like five or six that you can actually spot. The rest may be too small or fast to see without specialist equipment.

Sadly, the Draconids is one of the least interesting meteor showers of the year. Probably because it's so unpredictable.

'The Draconids are one of those showers where you either see a bunch of them or none of them,' Bill Cooke, a meteor expert with Nasa, told Space.com. It's the first of two meteor showers this month, with the Orionidsset to strike towards the end of October.

The Draconids may only offer up five or six meteors per hour (AFP/Getty Images)

The meteors will come from the direction of the Draco the dragon, the constellation from which they took their name.

On really lucky years, there might be a 'burst' of hundreds of thousands of shooting stars falling every hour from the dragon's head – known as the dragon 'awakening'. In 2011, for example, stargazers in Europe were treated to six hundred an hour.

☄️ The #Draconids are named after the constellation Draco the Dragon as this is the direction from which they appear to originate.

To view the Draconids from the UK, head outside after sunset on 9 October. Find out more in our latest blog: https://t.co/j7LY55PlvW pic.twitter.com/iHn3qxJIDB

— National Space Centre (@spacecentre) October 5, 2019

As ever, the best chance you have of seeing the meteor shower is getting out as far away from light pollution as possible.

The Draconids are created as the Earth passes through the debris left by the 21 P/Giacobini-Zinner comet, which takes about 6.6 years to make a revolution around the sun.

It peaks every year around this time and will also be visible in the night sky tomorrow night.

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