taurid meteor

Giant asteroid flyby, and more can't-miss sky events in November

Stargazers can also look out for multiple meteor showers and a parade of planetary pairings this month.

A shooting star cuts across auroras in a November night sky.
Photograph by N. Melville CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, ESA

As seasonal changes really get underway in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, sky-watchers around the world can look up to get their best views of a giant asteroid as it zooms past Earth and to gaze at a double stream of bright meteors pulled apart by Jupiter’s massive gravitational field.

So dust off those binoculars, and get set to explore the night sky this month.

The annual Taurid meteor shower is a celestial double feature: The original stream of comet debris has been tugged apart over time by gravitational effects from passing planets, resulting in two groupings of Taurid meteors with different peak times.

Look for the southern shower to radiate from its namesake constellation Taurus, the bull, in the eastern sky

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