Meteor shower flux
                 

Meteor Shower
Flux Monitoring

Supporting data supplied by the Global Meteor Network
                 

Meteor shower activity level


50 0 10 20 30 40 60 70 80 90 100 110+ Visual ZHR in the next 24 hrs32meteors/hr Sporadic background


The dial shows the peak sum of activity from all currently active showers and the sporadic background in the next 24 hours. The numbers are based on previous observations and predictions of future activity. The real activity might be lower or higher than the predicted value, as meteor showers can have unexpected outbursts. See the plots below for the latest real-time meteor shower activity measurements.

How many meteors will I see?

ZHR stands for Zenithal Hourly Rate and is the number of meteors a single observer would see in one hour in ideal conditions: under a clear, moonless dark sky with the radiant directly overhead.

The ZHR is not the number of meteors an observer will see in reality - for example, during the peak of the Perseids when their ZHR is about 100, you can expect to see about one Persied every minute. However, if the Moon is full this number is easily halved, and if the radiant is low in the sky (below 30 degrees) you will see even less.

When should I observe?

An average observer will notice significantly increased meteor activity when the ZHR is above ~50 (the needle is in the green), which corresponds to the peak activity of the top 10 most active showers.

Outside rare meteor shower outbursts, the three showers which put on a regular annual show that is worth watching (ZHR > 100) are the Perseids (Aug 11 - 13), Geminids (Dec 13 - 14) and Quadrantids (Jan 3 - 4).
The plot below which summarizes the usual activity of annual meteor showers but excludes outbursts. Northern hemisphere showers (declination > 30 deg) are shown in blue, while southern hemisphere showers (declination < -30 deg) are shown in red (none currently). The showers in between are shown in black and are usually visible from both hemispheres.


Currently active showers

Last update:
2024-10-11 14:42:39 UTC
Solar longitude 198.4354 deg
(indicated by a red vertical line on the flux plots)


Previous plots can be found here: Archival data

Information about the data is provided in a section below: About


#2 STA - Southern Taurids

Year 2024


Years 2022 - 2024


#8 ORI - Orionids

Year 2024


Years 2022 - 2024


#9 DRA - October Draconids

Year 2024


Years 2022 - 2024


#22 LMI - Leonis Minorids

Year 2024


Years 2022 - 2024


#221 DSX - Daytime Sextantids

Year 2024


Years 2022 - 2024

Operational shower table

IAU # IAU code Name Sol begin Sol max Sol end Year Population index
1 CAP alpha Capricornids 110.00 127.10 135.00 annual 2.50
2 STA Southern Taurids 190.00 216.00 230.00 annual 2.30
4 GEM Geminids 256.00 262.00 266.00 annual 1.90
5 SDA Southern delta Aquariids 114.00 125.50 145.00 annual 2.30
6 LYR April Lyrids 30.00 32.40 34.00 annual 2.10
7 PER Perseids 123.00 140.40 147.00 annual 2.00
8 ORI Orionids 198.00 209.00 225.00 annual 2.20
9 DRA October Draconids 192.00 195.50 197.00 annual 2.50
10 QUA Quadrantids 281.00 283.00 285.00 annual 2.10
12 KCG kappa Cygnids 130.00 145.00 152.20 annual 2.10
13 LEO Leonids 224.00 235.00 245.00 annual 2.90
15 URS Ursids 269.00 270.40 272.00 annual 1.70
16 HYD sigma Hydrids 238.00 256.00 270.00 annual 3.00
17 NTA Northern Taurids 217.00 224.50 241.00 annual 2.30
19 MON December Monocerotids 250.00 261.00 266.00 annual 3.00
22 LMI Leonis Minorids 199.00 208.70 221.00 annual 2.00
31 ETA eta Aquariids 30.00 46.00 66.00 annual 2.10
69 SSG Southern mu Sagittariids 71.00 86.00 96.00 annual 2.90
171 ARI Daytime Arietids 62.00 78.50 99.00 annual 1.90
183 PAU Piscis Austrinids 124.00 136.00 142.00 annual 3.20
206 AUR Aurigids 154.20 158.60 167.70 annual 2.60
208 SPE September epsilon Perseids 161.90 166.80 178.40 annual 2.00
221 DSX Daytime Sextantids 174.00 188.40 197.00 annual 2.20
18 AND Andromedids 215.00 239.00 252.00 annual 2.50
184 GDR July gamma Draconids 122.00 125.50 128.00 annual 2.50
191 ERI eta Eridanids 118.00 137.00 145.00 annual 2.50
281 OCT October Camelopardalids 191.00 192.50 194.00 annual 2.50
18 oAND2021 Andromedids 233.00 245.90 250.00 2021 2.50
451 oCAM2022 Camelopardalids 60.00 63.50 65.00 2022 2.90
61 oTAH2022 tau Herculids 66.70 69.40 71.00 2022 2.51
170 oJBO2022 June Bootids 88.00 92.40 99.00 2022 2.50
199 oADC2022 August delta Capricornids 143.00 143.70 144.50 2022 2.50
18 oAND2023 Andromedids 245.00 250.00 255.00 2023 2.50
9999 oWir2023 Wirtanenids 259.50 259.80 260.50 2023 3.00
9998 oM2024H1 M2024H1 37.50 37.80 38.00 2024 2.50

About

The plots above show near-real time flux estimates computed as part of a collaboration between the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office and the Western University Meteor Physics group for major meteor showers. These data are gathered by video cameras of the Global Meteor Network - the hardware, software and flux methodology background are provided in the references below.

The plots show the measured physical meteor flux (left hand axis) while the equivalent Zenithal Hourly Rate (number of meteors an observer would see under ideal skies with the radiant overhead in an hour) is shown on the right axis as a function of solar longitude (J2000). The assumed population index (which is used to convert flux to ZHR) is assumed constant over the duration of the shower is shown in the header. The equivalent flux to a limiting meteor absolute magnitude of +6.5 and the average limiting meteor magnitude for the measurements are shown, where the equivalent meteoroid mass uses the Mass-Magnitude-Velocity relationship of Verniani (1973). Uncertainties reflect Poisson statistics only (95% confidence interval).

When a plot on the front page is clicked, a full plot including additional metadata will open. The second inset in the full plot shows the number of single station meteors associated to the shower by all cameras in varying time bins (black dots). The per bin equivalent time-area-product (TAP) of coverage in the atmosphere (in units of 1000 km2 hr) is also shown. The time bin sizes are computed by requiring each bin to contain a minimum number of meteors (min meteors) and a minimum TAP.

The third inset in the full plot show the average radiant distance from the cameras center field of view, the apparent elevation of the radiant (weighted by the TAP) and the moon phase (0 = new and 100 = full).

Finally, the fourth inset shows the average meteor angular velocity (in degrees per second) measured in the cameras field center (black crosses) and the theoretical limiting detectable meteor magnitude taking all corrections into account also at the field center.

Data are updated once per day on a global basis.

References

Data usage

The data are released under the CC BY 4.0 license. If you are using the data for scientific purposes, we kindly ask you to reference the following papers:

Also, we kindly ask you to add this text in the acknowledgements of any publications:
The Global Meteor Network (GMN) data are released under the CC BY 4.0 license. The authors acknowledge that the GMN data collection was supported in part by the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office under cooperative agreement 80NSSC21M0073 with the Western Meteor Physics Group.