The Taurid Fireballs: Few and Far Between, and Worth It

A Taurid fireball streaks past the aurora, November 2015 — one of the swarm years. Photo: Rocky Raybell, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

When I wrote my fall sky guide a few weeks ago — Look Up: Virginia's Night Sky Between Now and New Year's — the Taurids got one short paragraph. "They don't put up big numbers," I said, "but they're famous for fireballs."

That's the whole truth, and it's why they get a post of their own. But let me put the honest part first, because I'd rather you hear it from me than learn it standing in a cold yard.

The numbers are not impressive.

This is not a swarm year. Every so often the Earth plows through a denser knot of this debris stream and the fireballs really put on a show — 2015 was a year like that, and 2022. The next one isn't expected until 2032. In an ordinary year like this one, each branch of the Taurids produces something like five meteors an hour, and with both branches running at once you might see ten in a good hour under a dark sky. Might.

NASA's own meteor expert, a fellow named Bill Cooke, has clearly spent some cold nights on this shower, because here's how he sums it up: the Taurids are rich in fireballs, so when one appears it's big and bright — "but their rates absolutely suck."

I can't improve on that. So why am I asking you to go outside?

Because of what the few are like.

Most meteors are gone before you can point. They hit our atmosphere at forty miles a second or better, and your whole experience of one is a blink and the words "did you see—" said to nobody. Taurids come in slow, around seventeen miles a second, which in meteor terms is nearly a stroll. That changes everything about watching one. A Taurid doesn't flash. It travels. The bright ones — the fireballs, and that's what this shower hoards — can outshine Venus, burn for several seconds, change colors as they go, and sometimes come apart in pieces at the end, like a Fourth of July shell that decided to take its time.

One of those in an evening is worth the evening. That's the trade the Taurids offer, every single fall: almost nothing, almost nothing, almost nothing — and then the sky does something you'll still be telling people about at Thanksgiving.

Where they come from, and your two chances.

The Taurids are the leftovers of Comet Encke, a small comet that circles the sun every three years and change — the shortest lap of any comet we know. Every fall the Earth runs through the gravel it has shed along the way, and the bigger chunks are the fireballs. The stream comes in two overlapping branches, named for which side of the sky's midline they favor, and that gives you two peak nights instead of one:

Wednesday night into Thursday morning, November 4–5, is the Southern Taurids' fireball peak — the main event.

Wednesday night into Thursday morning, November 11–12, the Northern Taurids peak. Miss the first night to weather, or just want a second draw from the deck, there it is.

And the moon, which ruins so many good plans, is sitting this one out. On the 4th and 5th it's a thin crescent that doesn't rise until a couple of hours before dawn, so your midnight sky is moonless and dark. The second peak lands just past the new moon on November 9, so it's darker still. Whatever the Taurids do this year, they'll do it against a properly black sky.

How to watch.

The meteors appear to radiate from Taurus, up near the Pleiades — that little dipper of stars I pointed out in the Hunter's Moon post. Taurus rides highest around midnight, so this is an after-midnight show; going out at nine and giving up is how people miss it. Don't stare straight at Taurus, though. Look a little off to one side, where the streaks run longest, and take in as much sky as you can. No telescope, no binoculars — they narrow your view to a keyhole. This is a lawn-chair shower.

Dress warmer than you think you need to. Standing still in a yard in November is not the same cold as walking in it. Blanket, chair you can lean back in, and patience — give it a full hour, not ten minutes. Fireballs keep their own schedule.

What to bring.

The same two things I recommended in the guide and the Hunter's Moon post, because they're still the two things that earn their place.

The first is the National Geographic Backyard Guide to the Night Sky, 2nd Edition — easy to read on the couch and still useful out in the yard.

The second is a red flashlight. Your eyes need 20 to 30 minutes to fully adjust to the dark, and one blast of white light — a phone, a porch light — resets the clock to zero. Red light lets you find your chair and your blanket without ruining the night vision you waited half an hour for.

Five an hour, and some hours fewer. I know how that sounds. But the sky only has to get it right once — one slow, bright fireball walking across the dark while you're out there under it — and you'll understand why folks who watch the sky gave these meteors a nickname and keep a chair ready every November.

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