Category Archives: Geminids

Geminids

The Geminid Meteor Shower, Ahoy!

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If It’s Clear, Check Out the Geminid Meteor Shower!

The Geminids Meteor shower. Courtesy Asim Patel, CC By-SA3.0
The Geminid Meteor shower. Courtesy Asim Patel, CC By-SA3.0

The last major meteor shower of the year happens this weekend — the Geminids — fly again! The peak is Sunday morning (in the very wee hours!) but you can likely start seeing the shower’s meteors starting early Saturday.  If you’re up and around, and it’s clear out — check ’em out! You could see a few meteors per minute, appearing to stream from the direction of the constellation Gemini.

Where Do The Geminids Come From?

The Geminids, like all meteor showers,  are created as pieces of comet or asteroid grains slam through our atmosphere. On the way down, they vaporize due to friction with ouratmospheric gases. What you see as a meteor is that vaporization — literally a bit of solar system history being destroyed before your eyes.

The Geminids are created by bits of debris that stream away from the asteroid 3200 Phaethon. As it orbits the Sun, it leaves bits of itself behind. Earth plows into that stream of material each December. Since asteroids date back to the earliest times in solar system history, the bits it leaves behind and that collide with Earth’s atmosphere literally ARE history going up in vapor!

3200 Phaethon

This parent asteroid to the Geminids is pretty unusual. It has a very elliptical orbit that brings it much closer to the Sun than many of the known asteroids in similar orbits. it was discovered in images taken by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite in 1983 — the first ever asteroid to be so detected. Once its orbit was determined, it didn’t take long for astronomers, led by Fred Whipple, to figure out it was the source of the Geminid meteor shower.  So, while you’re out enjoying the Geminids this weekend, take a moment to savor the history that’s being made (and ended) before your eyes!

Geminids, meteors

December’s Meteor Shower

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The Geminids

Right now, Earth is passing through a swarm of particles shed by the asteroid 3200 Phaethon as it moves through its orbit in the solar system. As we encounter the stream, many of the particles get swept into our atmosphere and get vaporized as they pass through. We see that action as meteors flashing across the sky. They appear to come at us from the constellation Gemini, and so this swarm of meteors is called the Geminid Meteor Shower. Earth entered the stream on December 6th, so you should be able to see some meteors each night through about the 18th of the month. The peak of the Geminids is later this week, on December 13/14.

Where to look for the Geminids. Courtesy Sky & Telescope (www.SkyandTelescope.com)

According to a story released by the good folks at Sky & Telescope, the skies should be good and dark for the shower since we’ll be at new moon. If you have good viewing conditions, you can expect to see perhaps one or two meteors (shooting stars) a minute from 10 p.m. Thursday night until dawn on Friday the 14th.

Meteor observing couldn’t be easier. Just find a good dark spot outside (and be sure to dress warmly —you could be out there a while) and find the constellation Gemini. Then, you wait for streaks of light to race across the sky, mostly radiating from Gemini — but they can appear anywhere. You will be able to see small flashes of light and if you’re lucky, maybe some bright ones will flare across the sky.

As you see these meteors, notice the colors in their trails — particularly if you’re lucky enough to see a fairly good-sized flash. These colors come from the materials in the meteor as it gets vaporized by friction with Earth’s atmosphere. Most meteor flashes will look white or blue-white.

One of the most interesting things about this shower is that it’s one of two showers caused by particles of rock from an asteroid. Most other meteor showers come from materials shed by comets as they round the Sun and Earth’s orbit intersects their paths.

If you get a chance, check this one out. It’s likely to be one of the best meteor showers of the year , so let’s hope the weather is good for all of us to go meteor-hunting!