The Northern Taurid meteor shower will be active from October 20 to December 10, 2025, and will peak on the night of November 11-12, according to the American Meteor Society.
The Northern Taurid meteor shower occurs when Earth passes through the debris of dust left behind by the asteroid 2004 TG10.
Northern Taurid meteor shower in 2025
When to see: The Northern Taurid radiant—the point from which the meteors appear to radiate—rises in the early evening, reaches its highest point in the sky around midnight, and sets in the early morning. So the shower will be best visible around midnight on November 12, 2025, when the radiant climbs high in the sky.
Like the Southern Taurids, which peak about a week earlier on the night of November 4–5, 2025, the Northern Taurid meteor shower has a broad, flat peak. You can expect a fairly steady rate of Taurid meteors—around 10 per hour—from late October to early November, when the two showers overlap.
Where to look: Look high in the southern sky around midnight to see the constellation Taurus, from which the Northern Taurid meteor shower radiates.
The Pleiades—the tiny, misty, dipper-shaped star cluster—will help you identify the constellation. Under dark skies, a handful of bright stars in the cluster are easily visible. The radiant of the Northern Taurid meteor shower is located just below the famous Pleiades star cluster.
Expected meteors during peak activity: The Northern Taurids are a modest shower, producing around 5 meteors per hour during peak activity under ideal conditions.
However, this rate doubles (to about 10 meteors per hour) when its peak overlaps with the Southern Taurids.
Moon phase during peak activity: The moon will be in the third quarter phase and 53% illuminated during peak activity. As the third quarter moon rises around midnight and is visible for the rest of the night, the moonlight may interfere with the Northern Taurids in 2025.
Visibility of the shower: The Northern Taurid meteor shower will be equally favorable for observers in both hemispheres, especially those located in the low-northern latitudes (from 15°N to 30°N).
Observers located in low northern latitudes will see about 98% of the shower’s activity, as the radiant climbs almost overhead (about 80° above the horizon) around midnight.
Origin of the Northern Taurid meteor shower
The Northern Taurid meteor shower originates from the asteroid 2004 TG10. The asteroid has a diameter of about 1.3 km and orbits the sun once every 3.3 years. NASA’s JPL has classified it as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA).
The asteroid 2004 TG10 is thought to be a fragment of the Encke Complex, a giant comet about 100 km in diameter that broke apart 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. As a result, we see comet Encke (the parent of the Southern Taurid meteor shower), asteroid 2004 TG10, and a vast complex of meteoroid streams, according to the Taurid Complex Giant Comet Hypothesis developed by Clube and Napier in 1984.
The asteroid 2004 TG10 was discovered on October 8, 2004, by the Spacewatch survey at Kitt Peak National Observatory.
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