WASHINGTON (AP) — The Orionids — one of two annual meteor showers from Halley's comet — peak early Monday. A bright waning moon may make them difficult to spot.
The Orionid meteor shower can be unpredictable. It shines like a fireworks display in some years, but is fairly slow in other years.
This highly variable shower may result in anywhere from 20 to 60 visible meteors per hour under ideal viewing conditions, said NASA's Bill Cooke.
This year’s peak activity happens on a night when a waning moon is 83% full. The shower lasts through November 22.
Here’s what to know about the Orionids and other meteor showers.
Multiple meteor showers occur annually and you don’t need special equipment to see them.
Most meteor showers originate from the debris of comets. The source of the Orionids is Halley’s comet.
When rocks from space enter Earth’s atmosphere, the resistance from the air makes them very hot. This causes the air to glow around them and briefly leaves a fiery tail behind them — the end of a “shooting star.”
The glowing pockets of air around fast-moving space rocks, ranging from the size of a dust particle to a boulder, may be visible in the night sky.
“Halley’s comet does not leave the same numbers of particles behind each year,” making it hard to predict what kind of show viewers will see, said Cooke.
Meteor showers are usually most visible between midnight and predawn hours.
It’s easier to see shooting stars under dark skies, away from city lights. Meteor showers also appear brightest on cloudless nights when the moon wanes smallest.
And your eyes will better adapted to seeing meteors if you aren’t checking your phone. “It ruins your night vision,” said Cooke.
October has been an active time for celestial sightings including the latest supermoon and the comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas.
The meteor society keeps an updated list of upcoming large meteor showers, including the peak viewing days and moonlight conditions.
The next big one is the Southern Taurid meteor shower, which peaks in early November.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
This photo provided by NASA shows the Orionid meteors on Oct. 13, 2015. (Jet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA via AP)
BRUSSELS (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday his country has intelligence information that 10,000 troops from North Korea are being prepared to join Russian forces fighting against his country, warning that a third nation wading into the hostilities would turn the conflict into a “world war.”
Zelenskyy did not go into further details about the claim that came a day after U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said in Seoul that Washington and its allies are alarmed by North Korea's military support for Russia’s war in Ukraine but couldn’t confirm Ukrainian claims that North Korean soldiers were sent to fight for Moscow.
“We know about 10,000 soldiers of North Korea that they are preparing to send (to) fight against us,” Zelenskyy said, calling any North Korean involvement "the first step to a world war.”
The Ukrainian leader’s comments raised the stakes for his Western allies as he met with European Union leaders and then NATO defense ministers to discuss his “ victory plan ” to end the country’s devastating war with Russia.
“If we start now and follow the victory plan, we can end this war no later than next year,” he told the EU leaders.
He told reporters the plan aims “to strengthen Ukraine" and pave the way for a diplomatic solution to end the conflict on Europe's eastern flank.
“This plan doesn’t depend on Russian will, only on the will of our partners,” he said before addressing leaders at an EU summit.
Zelenskyy was later shuttling across Brussels to meet with NATO defense ministers. The EU is a key supporter of Ukraine, a candidate member of the 27-nation bloc, as it fights Russia's invasion that began more than 2 1/2 years ago.
Zelenskyy outlined the five-point plan to Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday without disclosing confidential elements that have been presented in private to key allies, including the United States.
Major points of the plan include an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO and permission to use Western-supplied longer-range missiles to strike military targets deep inside Russia, steps that have been met with reluctance by Kyiv’s allies so far.
“If we get this sign that we will be in NATO, we will feel that we are not alone,” Zelenskyy said.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, widely seen as having the warmest relations of any EU leader with Russian President Vladimir Putin, called Zelenskyy's plan “more than frightening” in a Facebook post and said he would urge major EU powers France and Germany to “begin negotiations with the Russians as soon as possible, in order to find a way out of this situation.”
The Institute for the Study of War in Washington said that Putin is seeking to draw out the war and he believes "that Russian forces can outlast Western support for Ukraine and collapse Ukrainian resistance by winning a war of attrition.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Thursday that Kyiv can rest “absolutely assured that 32 allies are united in making sure that collectively, we will do whatever is needed to make sure that Ukraine can prevail, that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin will not get his way.”
Rutte reiterated that Ukraine’s place is among NATO’s ranks, but he would not say when it might join. Zelenskyy insists that a membership invitation is central to his “victory plan” and would provide his country with the ultimate security guarantee to protect it from Russia.
“Ukraine will be a member of NATO in the future,” Rutte said. “The question is exactly about the ‘when.’ I cannot answer that now.”
However, Rutte said, Putin must understand that “we are in this, if necessary, for the long haul. And obviously we want to be in a place where Zelenskyy and Ukraine, from a position of strength, is able to start talks with Russia.”
Zelenskyy told EU leaders that his troops must keep battling Russian forces in Ukraine "while also bringing the war back into Russia so that Russians can feel what war is like and begin to hate Putin for it.”
Zelenskyy said he needs to "move some partners forward” on the issue. “And I think only with the unity in EU we can move and can move not only EU leaders, we can move other leaders.”
A draft copy of EU summit conclusions — a text that will likely be tweaked before publication at the end of Thursday's meeting — reaffirms the bloc's “unwavering commitment to providing continued political, financial, economic, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support to Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes and as intensely as needed. Russia must not prevail.”
Thursday's talks in Brussels come as Ukrainian troops are struggling to hold off better-equipped Russian forces, especially in the eastern Donetsk region where they are gradually being pushed back. Kyiv is surviving with Western help, but Ukraine says it is coming too slowly.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda criticized slow Western decision-making over Ukraine and said it “would be a great mistake to think that our hesitance is the best way to de-escalation.”
At their summit in Washington in July, the 32 NATO members declared Ukraine on an “irreversible” path to membership.
But for now, NATO is in a holding pattern. Its biggest and most powerful member, the United States, is facing a presidential election. European allies expect little movement on Ukraine until a new president takes office in January.
Beyond that, the United States and European heavyweight Germany remain deeply concerned about being dragged into a wider war with nuclear-armed Russia, and they lead a group of countries that oppose allowing Ukraine to join NATO until the conflict ends.
Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands. Associated Press reporter Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy talks to journalists during a press conference at an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)
A journalist uses her phone to record a press conference of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy talks to journalists during a press conference at an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy talks to journalists during a press conference at an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and European Council President Charles Michel arrive to an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
European Union leaders pose for a group photo with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, front row sixth left, during an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and European Council President Charles Michel talk to journalists as they arrive to an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and European Council President Charles Michel arrive to an EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Ukrainian servicemen of Khartia brigade fire D-30 Howitzer towards Russian positions in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)
Ukrainian servicemen of Khartia brigade fire D-30 Howitzer towards Russian positions in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)
In this photo provided by the Press Service Of The President Of Ukraine on Oct. 16, 2024, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to parliamentarians at Verkhovna Rada in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Press Service Of The President Of Ukraine via AP)
FILE - In this image provided by the Office of the Ukrainian Presidency, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, is watched by Rich Hansen, the commander's representative for the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, while signing military ordnance in Scranton, Pa., Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (Office of the Ukrainian Presidency via AP, File)
Ukrainian president Zelenskyy heads to EU, NATO to seek backing for his 'victory plan'
FILE - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a joint press conference during the Crimea Platform summit in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)
Ukrainian president Zelenskyy heads to EU, NATO to seek backing for his 'victory plan'
