See the Year’s Brightest Comet, a Supermoon, and 2 Meteor Showers in October's Night Sky

01.10.2024 - 17:27 / travelandleisure.com

This October, the astronomy world will be abuzz with night-sky happenings, from a bright and potentially naked-eye-visible comet sighting and a ring-of-fire solar eclipse to multiple meteor showers and Earth’s temporary second moon.

That’s not even counting the continued uptick in northern lights activity as we enter solar maximum, the roughly 11-year peak of solar activity. If September’s aurora sightings, which brought the green and pink ribbons as far south as Ohio and Upstate New York, are any indication, October could be another great northern lights month.

And there’s so much more where that came from. Grab your telescopes andstargazing binoculars; here’s everything to watch for in the action-packed October night sky.

If you find yourself in Argentina orChile on Oct. 2, consider yourself lucky. A full annular solar eclipse, with the moon covering all but the sun’s bright orange fringes, will be visible from select southern stretches of the two countriesaccording to NASA. The full “ring of fire” delight will be visible in Patagonian outposts like Perito Moreno National Park in Argentina and Laguna San Rafael National Park in Chile. A partial annular eclipse will also delight sky gazers in Hawaii, Uruguay, Fiji, and Samoa. If you can’t catch the show, enjoy a live stream via Time and Date.

Overnight from Oct. 7 to 8 will bring the peak of the Draconid meteor shower, a spectacle that could produce up to 10 shooting stars per hour under dark, light-pollution-free skies. The 27% illuminated moon will set before 9 p.m., according to EarthSky. That means stargazers can enjoy the show without obstructive lunar illumination. To see the soaring meteors, watch toward the Draco constellation in the north-northwest sky; if you need help finding it, scan for Ursa Minor, also known as the Little Dipper, and look just to the west.

For months, astronomers have been crossing their fingers that Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (pronounced: choo-cheen-shahn, according to the Duluth News Tribune) will stay intact on its late-September transit near the sun — and early predictions sound promising. The exact visibility remains up in the air as of this article’s publication, but the odds are looking good for a bright comet that’s potentially vivid enough to spot with the naked eye. Your best bet to admire it begins Oct. 12, when the comet is closest to the Earth and should be visible, either to the naked eye or via stargazing binoculars or telescope, above the western horizon after sunset. This will be the best evening for viewing the space rock and its signature plume tail. It will rise higher in the sky the evenings that follow, and remain visible with binoculars or a telescope for at least another month, according to Space.co