NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF/CNN) — A meteor shower is predicted to light up the sky Thursday night until Friday morning.
Unfortunately for Middle Tennesseans, clouds and rain will make it hard to enjoy the display. Rain is expected to move into the area around 10 p.m., but clouds will fill the sky before the rain hits, blocking the view.
The meteor shower is known as the alpha Monocertoid, which gets its name from the Monoceros constellation that lies southwest of the constellation Orion.
The alpha Monocertoid usually happens around November 21 to 23, but during a normal shower it only produces a few meteors each night.
The large outbursts of this shower previously occurred in 1925, 1935, 1985 and 1995, with the outburst being a complete surprise for each of those years, except when it was predicted in 1995, according to the American Meteor Society.
The meteor shower comes from the dust trail of an unknown comet, the meteor scientists said. And the stream of meteoroids only intersects Earth's orbit sometimes, which is what makes this potential outburst so rare.
The conditions are lining up the way they did in 1995, so the meteor scientists are hopeful, but remind everyone that this is only a prediction.
During the 1995 outburst, the hourly rate of meteors was around 400. If the prediction is correct and that happens again, skygazers around the country can expect to see around seven meteors streaking across the sky per minute. But the rate could actually mean two to three meteors close together and then another minute before activity picks up again. They'll be moving at about 140,927 miles per hour.
