The Tau Herculids meteor
shower may light up the skies over North America on May 30 and 31. Or it may not.
There's a chance we might
pass through the thickest part of the comet fragment that is creating the debris, in which case the night skies will be filled with shooting stars.
It could lead to a spectacular
"meteor storm," in which Earth passes through an especially thick forest of space rocks, leading to up to 1,000 shooting stars per hour
The moon will be new and
the radiant, or apparent direction of the shower, is in the high-up constellation of Hercules in the northern sky.
This means there will
be a minimum of natural light pollution to contend with when looking for shooting stars.
IF comet that spawned the
storm has debris traveling slower than 220 mph (321 kph), "then nothing will make it to Earth and there will be no meteors from this comet