There's a meteor shower from Halley's Comet coming this week - here's how to see it

If you're willing to wake up before the crack of dawn, you'll get to see a spectacular celestial show this week.

The Orionid meteor shower happens around this time every year when the Earth passes through the tail of Halley's Comet. Chunks of debris from the comet burn up as they hit Earth's atmosphere, creating brilliant streaks of light that race across the sky.

The best time to see the meteor shower will start late at night on Wednesday, October 21, and last into the early morning of Thursday, October 22. The best window will happen just before sunrise on October 22, at around 5 a.m. EDT when NASA estimates you'll be able to see about 20 to 25 meteors per hour. (If you don't live on the east coast, you can use this sunrise calculator to look up when the sunrise will happen in your time zone.)

If you are in a dark enough area, you won't need a telescope to see the show. You should be able to see the meteors passing through the constellation of Orion, which you can locate in the sky using this guide from the Globe at Night.

However, you might be out of luck this year if you live in a big city, according to NASA.

"The Orionids will probably show weaker activity than usual this year," Bill Cooke, a scientist at the NASA Meteoroid Environments Office, said in a press release.

But don't worry if you can't spot any meteors. NASA is providing a live stream of the event starting at 10 p.m. EDT on October 21:

You probably won't be able to spot any meteors until at least 11:30 p.m. though.

If you don't want to stay up that late or wake up that early this week, the next meteor shower, called Leonids, will peak on November 18, according to NASA.

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