Aurigid meteor shower in 2026
Peak night: The shower will peak on the night of August 31–September 1, 2026.
Best time to watch: The shower will be visible in the pre-dawn hours, when the radiant climbs high in the sky. Aurigid activity increases as the night deepens and reaches its maximum just before dawn.
Activity period: The shower will be active from August 29 to September 2, 2026. During this period, Earth will pass through the debris stream left by Comet C/1911 N1 (Kiess).
Radiant: The Aurigids’ radiant rises around midnight and reaches its highest point at dawn.
Moon phase during peak activity: In 2026, during the peak night, the moon will be in its waning gibbous phase. As the thick waning gibbous moon rises in the late evening and remains visible for the rest of the night, the moonlight will interfere with observations of the Aurigids.
Expected meteors during peak activity: Under ideal conditions—with a very dark sky and the radiant directly overhead—you can expect to see up to 6 meteors per hour.
Meteor velocity: Aurigid meteors enter Earth’s atmosphere at about 67 km/s (241,200 km/h), which is very close to the maximum attainable velocity of 72 km/s, so they appear very swift.
View from the Southern Hemisphere: The shower will be difficult to observe from the Southern Hemisphere, as its radiant never climbs much above the horizon.
Radiant of the Aurigid meteor shower
On the peak night, if you trace all the Aurigid meteors backward, they appear to come from a particular point in the constellation Auriga. Hence, the meteor shower is named after the constellation Auriga.
From late August to early September, the constellation Auriga will lie in the eastern sky during the pre-dawn hours. The constellation is easily recognizable because it is the home to Capella, the sixth-brightest star in the night sky.
Parent of the Aurigid meteor shower
Comet C/1911 N1 (Kiess) is the parent body of the Aurigid meteor shower. It is a long-period comet that takes about 2500 years to orbit the sun. It reached its last perihelion (closest approach to the sun) in 1911.
American astronomer Carl Clarence Kiess discovered this comet at Lick Observatory in California on July 6, 1911, while searching for Encke’s Comet with the Crocker Photographic Telescope.
The association of the comet with the Aurigids was recognized by German astronomer Cuno Hoffmeister and his colleague Arthur Teichgraeber of the Sternwarte Sonneberg following the 1935 Aurigid outburst.
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