Coming up on 22nd October 2019 is the Orionid meteor shower. There have already been a few fireballs from the shower and they are due to peak at dawn on the 22nd so it might be worth setting an alarm.

Where do they come from? They are dusty remnants of the comet Halley. They are the dust cloud that came off the comet as it travelled through the solar system. Halley returns on a regular basis. It was identified as a recurring comet by the astronomer Edmund Halley when he realised it was the same comet that had been seen in the sky around the time of the battle of Hastings and then approximately every 100 years or so afterwards.

The meteors (or meteorites if they land) appear to radiate from the area around the star Orion which is why they are called the Orionids. There are other showers of meteors throughout the year. These include the Persids and the Geminids. Some showers are brighter than others. It depends on the debris cloud that the Earth moves through. The dust and debris for showers are in patches of space that the Earth moves through, hence their yearly appearance.

The Orionids apparently move faster than a lot of other meteors so they can create more of a show. The speed increases the friction and they burn up in the atmosphere faster.

You can find out more at a website called Spaceweather.com