SACRAMENTO, CA - If you didn't see Wednesday night's Orionid
meteor shower or can't get enough of the eye-catching display,
astronomers expect an even more dramatic show this weekend.
According to NASA, the hot air trails of meteoroids or space
rocks passing through Earth's atmosphere should appear in the
sky around the Orion constellation, hence the name Orionid
meteor shower. The meteor shower is expected to begin around 11
p.m. Saturday, peak around midnight and last through Sunday
morning, an hour or two before dawn. Orionids appear every year
around this time when the Earth orbits through a part of space
that is full of debris from Halley's Comet, NASA spokesperson
Janet Anderson said. "Earth is passing through a stream of
debris from Halley's Comet, the source of the Orionids," NASA's
Meteoroid Environment Office's Bill Cooke explained. "Flakes of
comet dust hitting the atmosphere should give us dozens of
meteors per hour." The shower is expected to peak around Oct. 20
to Oct. 21. Usually the shower pro