Continue reading the seven part of the series about gems of Maldivian sky, written by Petr Horálek
Photo by: Petr Horálek
What is a meteor? Simply put, a tiny piece of ice and dust or other space debris that burns up as it passes through the Earth’s atmosphere. Because the Earth is surrounded by countless such debris and the Earth’s gravity constantly attracts this dust, we can see dozens of meteors, popularly known as shooting stars, during the night. But there are also cases when the Earth passes through a denser stream of such particles, usually left in its path by a crumbling comet or asteroid. In such a case, an even more beautiful phenomenon occurs in the sky: a meteor shower.
A meteor shower differs from a random meteors with the fact that its meteors appear to come from a single spot in the sky, the radiant. This is the direction from which the stream of ice particles enters the Earth’s atmosphere due to the influence of perspective. During the year, we can observe several regular meteor showers, and the radiant of each of them lies in a different constellation. Meteor showers are named after the Latin name of the constellation from which the meteors come. The Perseids come from Perseus, the Geminids from Gemini, and the Aquarids from Aquarius.
Although we are often told that a given meteor shower peaks on a particular night, the Earth usually passes through the stream of the shower for several days. At the edge of the stream, the density of particles is low, so the meteor shower starts with very little activity. As our planet moves into the densest part of the stream over the next few nights, the number of shooting stars increases each night until the maximum of the shower. Then it decreases again as the Earth gradually moves out of the stream of the shower. The period of its activity is different for each meteor shower, but the essence remains that you can watch them for several nights around the predicted maximum, i.e. the date when the Earth passes through the densest stream of particles.
Photo by: Petr Horálek
And what about meteor showers in the Maldives? Since the Maldivian islands are located on the equator, we can observe practically all meteor showers that occur during the year. The radiants of all showers can reach the Maldivian horizon for at least a few hours and allow the sighting of at least a few meteors from a given shower. Below is a table of the best observable showers from the Maldivian islands and the expected frequency of meteors at the time of their maximum.
| Name of Shower | Constellation | Active | Maximum | Rate * | Best Visible |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quadrantids | The Herdsman | 28 Dec – 12 Jan | 3-4 January | 40 | Before Dawn |
| Lyrids | The Lyre | 14-30 April | 22 April | 14+ | Before Dawn |
| Pi Puppids | The Stern | 15-28 April | 23 April | 3+ | Dusk – 10pm |
| Eta Aquarids | The Water Bearer | 19 Apr – 28 May | 6-7 May | 25 | 3am – Dawn |
| S. Delta Aquarids | The Water Bearer | 12 Jul – 23 Aug | 31 July | 25 | 10pm – 4am |
| Perseids | Perseus, The Hero | 17 Jul – 24 Aug | 12-13 August | 50 | 2am – Dawn |
| Orionids | Orion, The Hunter | 2 Oct – 7 Nov | 21-22 October | 25+ | 11pm – Dawn |
| Leonids | The Lion | 6-30 November | 17 November | 15+ | 1am – Dawn |
| Alpha Monocerotids | The Unicorn | 15-25 November | 21 November | Variable | 10pm – Dawn |
| Geminids | The Twins | 4-20 December | 13-14 December | 120 | 11pm – 3am |
* Rate of meteors per hour during maximum of the shower from Maldives
And how do you actually observe meteors and meteor showers? It’s easy and you don’t need any special equipment. Just lie down on a deck chair and watch the sky. Meteors appear randomly all over the sky. They look like fireworks. Sometimes they are faint, barely noticeable, other times they are very bright. Sometimes they can end their flight through the sky with a bright explosion. The faint ones appear colorless, the really bright ones can shine green or blue-green. In some cases, after their flight, a radiant wisp of air appears in the sky for a few seconds, which gradually fades away. It looks like smoke from a blown out candle. Anyway, watching meteors is one of the most impressive experiences you can enjoy during Maldivian nights.
Photo by: Petr Horálek
Is it really worth it? Yes! In 2025, I was lucky to visit Soneva Jani and Soneva Fushi Islands just during the peak of the Geminid meteor shower. And it was just epic. The Geminids are annually most active so far from all other showers, producing 2-3 meteors every minute during the night of its peak, especially between 11pm and 3am, when the constellation of The Twins is highest in the sky. I was just sitting and gazing the sky, one night from a swing, another night from a pier to villas. It did not matter where I was located, once I looked up and gazed for a while, I saw dozens of shooting stars randomly appearing in the whole sky before a clouds covered it for a while.
Another of the islands where you can still see the not only beauty of the meteor showers, but night sky in general, is Thoddoo, especially its sunset beach. If the Maldivian government and the owners of the accommodation centers would come up with a plan to effectively reduce light pollution by installing the right and nature-friendly lamps (which is very well described by International Dark Sky Association), it would also become a truly worldly unique paradise for enjoying the gems of the night nature, including the meteor showers!
Something about the author and photographer of this post
PETR HORÁLEK was born in 1986 in Pardubice, Czech Republic. He studied Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics at Masaryk University Brno (graduated in 2011) and Theoretical Physics in Silesian University of Opava (graduated in 2022). He worked briefly as an observer of fireballs at the Department for Interplanetary Matter of the Astronomical Institute of Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic, now he is astrophotographer and popularizer of astronomy, awarded also by NASA. From 2011, he fell in love with astrophotography and decided to take a year-long trip around the world to improve his skills in that field. As citizen of a light-polluted Czech Republic, he travels the world to naturally dark places to show people in polluted cities what are they missing (not only) above their heads. A long route through the Canary Islands, Australia, New Zealand, the Cook Islands, and South Africa brought him in the end into the heart of the Atacama Desert at ESO’s La Silla and Paranal Observatory in 2015, and, of course, the Maldives Islands in 2019. Petr specializes in photographing rare night-sky phenomena. His images capture unique moments, which he calls “pearls of astronomy”, that add to the immeasurable beauty of a dark starry sky. Something, he thinks that everyone should see at some point in their lives.
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