INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) — Thursday night is setting up to be a rare event.
There's a chance that the alpha Monocerotid meteor shower could become a meteor storm, according to Eseko Lyytinen and Peter Jenniskens, two meteor scientistss who have been studying this particular meteor shower.
If the meteor storm does happen, it will be the first alpha Monocerotids meteor storm since 1995, when it produced rates of around 400 meteors per hour.
According to the American Meteor Society, the storm may be here and gone quickly — usually over within an hour. AMS reports that the storm would reach its peak at 11:50 p.m. on Nov. 21, according to EarthSky.
A meteor storm is when a dust trail from a meteor shower is small and dense. The result is hundreds and even thousands of meteors burning up in just minutes," according to the National Weather Service.
Even if the outburst doesn't happen, stargazers should still be able to see up to 10 "sporadic" meteors per hour, according to AMS.
