The Northern Taurid meteor shower peaks on the night of 11 to 12 November 2026, and it brings a special promise: even though only a handful of meteors fall each hour, some of them may be fireballs bright enough to outshine Venus.
The Taurids are really two showers, the Southern and Northern Taurids, which overlap in late October and early November. The Southern Taurids peaked on the night of 4 to 5 November. The Northern branch follows a week later, and this year it arrives under almost ideal conditions.
Few meteors, big fireballs
The Northern Taurids are active from 20 October to 10 December, according to the American Meteor Society, with the peak on the night of 11 into 12 November. Expect only about five meteors per hour at maximum, the Royal Observatory Greenwich says — a modest rate by any measure.
What the Taurids lack in numbers they make up for in brightness. NASA describes the shower as “known for their fireballs”, meteors at least as bright as Venus. The Taurid stream carries an unusually high proportion of larger, pebble-sized particles from Comet 2P/Encke, and those larger particles burn brighter and longer. Taurid meteors are also relatively slow, entering the atmosphere at about 29 kilometres per second, so their streaks can last several seconds.
A dark Moon helps
The Moon will be only about 3 to 7 per cent lit on peak night, a thin waxing crescent that sets early, leaving a dark sky for most of the night. The new Moon falls on 9 November, so the darkest conditions of the month sit close to the Northern Taurid peak.
The radiant, in the constellation Taurus, rises in the evening and is high in the southern sky late in the evening, so the hours around midnight are prime. The best time to watch is from late evening through to dawn, and the shower is visible from both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
Not a swarm year
Astronomers note that 2026 is not expected to be a Taurid swarm year — the last swarm passed in 2025 and the next is predicted for 2032 — but fireballs are still possible. As National Geographic reported on 5 November, the shower is “more of a light sprinkle than a heavy storm”, yet a single fireball can make a whole night worthwhile.
Sources: National Geographic, 5 Nov 2026; NASA November 2026 skywatching guide; American Meteor Society / International Meteor Organization 2026 calendar (via Odinity and Starlust, 4 Nov 2026).
