TOPEKA (KSNT) – A larger-than-normal moon and meteor shower are set to light up the sky in early October, offering people a show to kick off early fall.
Sky watchers have a lot to look forward to in the month of October, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A rare October harvest moon will brighten up the night sky while a few meteors fly by during two separate meteor showers.
Chelsea Gohd with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory touched on these visually stunning opportunities for October in a recent publication. She said people have the following events to look out for in October:
- Supermoon/harvest moon – Oct. 6.
- Draconid meteor shower – Oct. 6-10.
- Orionid meteor shower reaches its peak on Oct. 21.
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The first event, the supermoon, will take over the sky the night of Oct. 6. People who are looking up will notice the full moon is looking both bigger and brighter than normal on this night. Gohd reports the moon will appear 30% brighter and about 14% larger than usual as it reaches “perigree” or its closest distance to Earth.
The moon will reach its peak illumination around 10:47 p.m. CST on Oct. 6, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. It marks the first of three supermoons for 2025 and is the brightest moon so far this year.
The harvest moon coincides with the start of the Draconid meteor shower which reaches its peak on Oct. 8. These meteors come from the debris trail of comet 21P Giacobini-Zinner and originate from the constellation Draco the dragon. People can expect to see around 10 meteors per hour streaking across the sky if the moon doesn’t outshine them.
Gohd said that another meteor shower, the Orionids, will hit its peak on Oct. 21. The shower runs from Sept. 26 to Nov. 22 and produces around 20 meteors per hour at its peak.
Orionids come from Halley’s comet and can best be viewed from midnight to 2 a.m. on the peak night. Unlike the Draconids, the Orionids will not be competing with a bright supermoon and will have the sky mostly to themselves, offering people a better chance to spot a stray meteor or two.
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