☄️ The Ursids meteor shower

A quiet shower around the December solstice. Active from 17 to 26 December.

The next peak · in 53 days

22 December 2026 at 22:07 UTC

Up to 10 meteors an hour under a dark sky. The Moon is 98% lit that night. Bright moonlight hides all but the brightest meteors.

The best hours are usually after midnight and before dawn, on the night of the peak and the night before.

The next few years

23 December 2027 at 04:17 UTCMoon 21% lit · A dark sky: a good year to watch.
22 December 2028 at 10:26 UTCMoon 36% lit · Some moonlight, so fewer faint meteors.
22 December 2029 at 16:35 UTCMoon 97% lit · Bright moonlight hides all but the brightest meteors.

At its peak: Up to 10 meteors an hour under a dark sky
Active: 17 to 26 December
Seems to come from: Ursa Minor
Where to see it: Only from the northern half of Earth
Made by: Dust from Comet Tuttle

How to watch

Get away from city lights if you can, and give your eyes 20 minutes to get used to the dark. Don’t look at your phone.
Lie back and look at a wide stretch of sky. Meteors appear anywhere, though their trails point back to Ursa Minor.
No telescope or binoculars: they show too little of the sky. Your eyes are best.
“Up to 10 an hour” is for a perfectly dark sky. From a town, expect a fraction of that.

Other meteor showers

All of them

Quadrantids Lyrids Eta Aquariids Perseids Orionids Leonids Geminids

Peak dates from the International Meteor Organization’s list of showers, worked out for each year; the Moon worked out with Astronomy Engine. Times are UTC until the page has loaded, then your own time zone.