A Blast Of New Meteors
May emerge during a tau Herculid meteor shower on May 30 and 31, but that's not a sure thing.
NASA Astronomer Bill Cooke Termed
The potential meteor shower milestone an "all or nothing event" in a blog post from the agency earlier in May.
Bill Cooke
"If the debris from SW 3 was traveling more than 220 miles [354 kilometers] per hour when it separated from the comet, we might see a nice meteor shower,"
Cooke Added
"If the debris had slower ejection speeds, then nothing will make it to Earth and there will be no meteors from this comet."
Orbital Data Showed That
The comet comes as close to Earth as 5.7 million miles (9.2 million km), orbiting the sun roughly every 5.4 years
The Comet Was First Observed
Almost exactly 92 years ago, by German astronomers, Friedrich Carl Arnold Schwassmann and Arno Arthur Wachmann on May 2, 1930.