Brunswick Remedial Massage: One of the year’s brightest meteor showers will light up Melbourne’s skies tonight

Courtesy of the cosmos, Melbourne’s evening sky would be the stage for a spectacular gentle present this week. The Eta Aquariid meteor bathe, which happens over Australia each Might, gives a number of the brightest and most quite a few meteor sightings of any of the Earth’s annual showers, providing a much better probability of glimpsing a fireball than the latest Lyrids event. The bathe is created when the Earth makes its yearly cross by means of the mud path left by the well-known Halley’s Comet, and it’s one of many solely annual meteor showers that’s greatest seen from the Southern Hemisphere.

Whereas this cosmic show is nicely value watching, there’s a catch: you’ll must forgo a few of your ordinary shuteye to see it. The height of the Eta Aquariid bathe this yr is due between 2am and 5am on the morning of Might 6, when you’ll see as many as 50 meteors an hour. When you want your sleep, there’ll nonetheless be some notable exercise for roughly 24-hours after this, and intermittent meteors for one more couple of weeks.

The excellent news is, clear-ish skies are forecast tonight over Melbourne, so there gained’t be any irritating cloud cowl to spoil your view. Stargazers will even be capable to see three of the photo voltaic system’s brightest planets – Venus, Mars and Saturn – in the identical area of sky because the bathe and people in darker elements of Victoria could even be capable to see the wispy haze of the Milky Manner. Astronomers advocate permitting your eyes a minimum of 20 minutes to regulate to the darkness, so do not surrender hope if you cannot instantly see any falling stars.