Andromedid meteor shower

, the Andromedids were formerly called the Bielids, after Biela’s Comet. The Cyrillid shower of 1913 had no radiant (the meteoroids seemed to enter the atmosphere from a circular orbit around Earth) and was named for St. Cyril of Alexandria, on whose feast day (formerly celebrated on…

…bright meteor showers (known as Andromedids, or Bielids) were observed, lending strength to astronomers’ deduction that all meteor showers are composed of fragments of disintegrated comets.

…as a meteor shower, the Andromedides, that traced the comet’s orbit. Biela’s discovery of the period of the comet helped astronomers confirm the suspected connection between comets and meteors. In honour of Biela’s discovery, the Andromedides are called the Bielids, and a crater on the Moon was named for him.

…is now known as the Andromedids, named for the constellation in the sky where it appears to radiate from, but is also sometimes referred to as the Bielids.