Earth is currently experiencing one of its top three meteoroid shower in price of natural process . May is the month of the Eta Aquariids , leftover pieces from the passage of Halley ’s comet . Earth gets as close-fitting to 9.7 million kilometer ( 6 million miles ) from the comet ’s orbit during this clip , close enough to capture some isolated dust leave over in its Wake Island .

The Eta Aquariids can show at a rate of up to one meteor a minute , but this intensity is only experienced by people around the equator and southern tropical zone . For everyone else on the major planet , a more low but very healthy rate of10 to 30 meteorsper hour is to be expected . The best time in the Northern Hemisphere is before dawn with the sky at itsdarkest(so away from city ) . In the Southern Hemisphere , the middle of the nighttime is good too .

It takes about 30 minutes for your eyes to line up , so take that into circumstance . Themeteorshower is quite long , from April 19 until May 28 each year . The peak this class is bear on the night between May 5 and 6 , but throughout that week there is a good luck to see many meteors .

Our orbit gets skinny to the orbit of Halley ’s comet twice a class . In May this leads to this shooting star shower . Then in October , the debris make up the Orionid meteor shower . Eta Aquariids have this name because they radiate from the adept Eta Aquarii .

Halley ’s cometis quite bright , and it has a comparatively short period , going around the Dominicus in 76 years . Humans have been observing it for over 2,250 old age . The first substantiate reflexion particular date to 240 BCE ; it was featured in the Book of Han by Chinese astronomers in 12 BCE . In 1066 it was featured in both the Bayeux Tapestry – the chronicle of the Norman Conquest of England – and in petroglyph carved by the Chaco , aboriginal Americans in modern - day New Mexico .

Its apparition in 1301 revolutionise Giotto di Bondone to symbolize theStar of Bethlehemas a comet , influencing its depiction for the following seven one C . Despite millennia of observations , it was only in 1705 that its cyclicity was find by Edmond Halley .

The last time that it was seen from Earth was in 1986 and it will be back in the inner Solar System again in 2061 . It is , in fact , onits path backas we speak , having achieve its farthest point from the Sun last December .