The Orionid Meteor Shower
The Orionids is the largest annual meteor shower, occurring in October every year, that is related and thought to be caused by Halley's Comet unlike the Eta Aquariids where there is some debate whether Halley's is actually the source of the meteor shower. The meteor shower is created by flakes of comet dust, left behind by Halley's Comet hitting the atmosphere which causes the sky to be lit up by dozens of meteors per hour. In the past it has been seen that the Orionids would have a display of around 20 meteors per hour, however, since 2006, the light show created has been much more active created a much busier meteoric event. When Earth travels through an area that contains space debris that has been left behind by Halley's, typically in October every year, the Orionids appear and light up the sky. [15]
The name for the Orionids comes from the radiant, or the area where the meteors seemingly come from, this area is within the constellation Orion, very close to the star Betelgeuse. The Orionids can be seen over a vast area of the sky, as they spread from the radiant, but they can be seen over a large area of the sky, however it is best to look at the shower around 90° away from the radiant as the glowing 'trains' or trails last for longer. Orionids occur in late October which typically last for a bit longer than a week, but has been visible for up to a month (as it was in 2012), and tends to peak in activity for a few days before returning to its previous state before petering out. In 2013 the shower was active from October 2 to Novermber 7 with peak activity across the 20th and 2st of October. The peak activity meteor count was approximately 20 meteors per hour when in a moonless sky, but this figure can be much higher and possible reach above 50 meteors per second. The average meteor velocity over the whole meteor shower was 66 km per second (41 miles per second) [18]