Breathtaking Orionid Meteor Shower Will Peak Early Thursday Morning

This beautiful light show appears every year thanks to Halley’s Comet.

Wishing upon a star will be easy this week.

The annual Orionid meteor shower, which began early Saturday and will last into November, will peak early Thursday morning. Weather permitting it should be a spectacular show of "shooting stars" visible across the entire U.S.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center will live stream the meteor shower starting at 10 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, when you can check out the video here:

Meteors may be visible to the naked eye as early as 11:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, but the best time to watch will be around 5 a.m. EDT on Thursday -- when the shower peaks.

“Bits of comet dust hitting the atmosphere will probably give us about a dozen meteors per hour," Bill Cooke of the NASA Meteoroid Environments Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said in a written statement.

Orionid meteors appear most clearly every year for about a week in mid to late October, when Earth passes through a cloud of debris left behind by Halley's Comet.

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