Southern Taurids meteor shower 2026 and 2027

What the Southern Taurids are

The Taurids come from a broad, old stream of debris tied to comet 2P/Encke. The International Meteor Organization (IMO) treats the Southern and Northern Taurids as two branches of the same complex. Because the stream is so wide, Earth spends about two months inside it. The Southern branch runs from late September to late November and IMO notes that several components contribute to it.

The radiant lies in Taurus, southwest of the Pleiades star cluster. IMO advises treating it as a large oval area, because Taurid meteors come from a spread-out region rather than a sharp point.

What they look like

Taurids are slow, entering the atmosphere at less than half the speed of a Perseid. IMO describes many of them as bright, and that combination makes them easy to follow and easy to photograph. NASA’s meteor office explains that in some years Earth runs into a group of pebble-sized fragments, which produce bright fireballs. The American Meteor Society calls early to mid November the best time of year to catch a couple of Taurid fireballs per night, when the shower is not weak.

How to watch from the US

The radiant lies near the ecliptic, the Sun’s yearly path, and is up most of the night in late October and November. It rises in the east in the early evening and stands highest in the south around 1 a.m. local standard time. IMO notes that Northern Hemisphere observers are somewhat better placed than southern ones, since the radiant stays at a useful height for much of the night. That applies to every part of the US.

Rates are low and steady, so this shower suits relaxed watching rather than a single all-night effort. IMO even recommends the Taurids to beginners as a way to practice plotting meteor paths. Recline, take in a wide view, and be patient. A fireball can show up at any point in the session. If you see a bright one, the American Meteor Society collects reports, which help scientists work out its path.

Notable history

In 2015, NASA’s meteor office reported that some scientists expected a Taurid swarm year, with more bright fireballs possible in the last week of October and the first two weeks of November. On October 31, 2015, Polish cameras recorded two exceptionally bright Southern Taurids, one reaching magnitude −16, much brighter than the full Moon. A study by Olech and colleagues found that their orbits resembled the Taurid stream and comet Encke, and even more closely two small asteroids, 2005 UR and 2005 TF50. The authors could not confirm a link between the fireballs and those asteroids, but showed that the two asteroids may share a common origin in a breakup within the Taurid complex.

IMO also points out that an earlier, smaller maximum around October 13 was long listed as the main Southern Taurid peak. More recent data put the main maximum in early November.

2026 and 2027 outlook

2026. IMO places the main maximum around November 5, in a moon-free period before the new Moon of November 9. Masahiro Koseki, cited by IMO, also remarked that activity around the earlier, mid-October maximum might be somewhat higher than average in 2026.

2027. IMO expects the main maximum around November 6, the date of first quarter in IMO’s moon table. A first-quarter Moon sets around midnight, leaving the hours before dawn dark. See the 2027 calendar for the full year.