Every year, space delights us with astronomical objects that penetrate the solar system and that, in interaction with the air and atmosphere, produce what we call meteor showers. For this period of the year, we owe the star rain to Delta Acuáridas del Sur.
Source
Meteor showers occur when Earth crosses the orbital path of a comet. When a comet approaches the sun and heats up, it throws off bits and pieces that spread out in that comet’s orbital stream. These cometary debris crashes into Earth’s upper atmosphere at 90,000 kilometers per hour, vaporizing – burning – as meteors or shooting stars.
The parent body of the meteorite that generated Delta Aquarida is not known with certainty. It was thought to have originated from the breakup of what are now the solar comets of Marsden and Kracht. But more recently, comet 96P Machholz has positioned itself as the leading candidate to be the body of DeltaAquarida.
Donald Machholz discovered this comet in 1986. It is a short-period comet whose orbit takes it around the sun once in just over five years.
Throughout the year there are different meteor showers, this time of year is the turn of Delta Acuáridas del Sur. It is estimated that they enter at a speed of 41 km/sec. Between 10 and 20 meteors are expected to occur per hour.
These meteor showers occur annually and last several days, this year’s occur from July 12 to August 23. The best nights are July 28, 29 and 30, 2017. The estimate of total meteor hours for observers this week is about 4 hours for those viewing from the northern hemisphere and 3 for those south of the Ecuador.
Guide to observe it
To see shooting stars in general, you need to be away from city lights and also from air pollution. The countryside and the beach are the best places to observe cosmic phenomena with the naked eye.
It is not necessary to use binoculars or telescopes, and it is not recommended either, because they reduce the change in vision. Shooting stars are seen with the naked eye, you will see them exactly as if a normal star were moving at high speed.
To observe them, lie down at night in a dark place away from the city, and carefully observe the sky.
If you do this at any time of the year, you may see a meteor within a few minutes; but if you do it on the day of the meteor shower in particular, you will surely see many.
To see them more easily, you should look towards the reference constellation, in this case Aquarius. If you don’t know how to find it, you can use a map or an application like Google Sky Map.