An ‘all or nothing’ meteor shower is coming Monday night. We’re hoping for ‘all’

Stargazers might be in for a treat early next week with an “all or nothing” meteor shower, as the Earth passes through debris of a disintegrating comet, according to NASA.

A possible newcomer, the tau Herculid shower, is forecast to peak the night of Monday, May 30 and into early Tuesday, May 31, according to a blog post from NASA.

“This is going to be an all or nothing event,” said Bill Cooke, who leads NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

Being able to see it will dependon the comet, known as SW3, the meteor shower’s origin, the post said.

“If the debris from SW3 was traveling more than 220 miles per hour when it separated from the comet, we might see a nice meteor shower,” Cooke said in the post. “If the debris had slower ejection speeds, then nothing will make it to Earth and there will be no meteors from this comet.”

Meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through “dusty debris left by a comet,” resulting in a bright trail, according to NASA.

SW3 was first discovered by German observers Arnold Schwassmann and Arno Arthur Wachmann in 1930, the post said. It orbited the sun every 5.4 years and disappeared until the late 1970s.

In 1995, astronomers noticed the comet “had become 600 times brighter” and determined the comet had shattered, the post said. When it passed Earth again in 2006, it was in nearly 70 pieces.

Though it’s unclear if the shower will make it to Earth this year, its peak may be at 1 a.m. Eastern time on May 31, Tuesday morning, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

Luckily for stargazers in North America, the moon is new, meaning there will be no moonlight to wash out the meteors, the post said.

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