Sky-gazers will soon have the chance to see dozens of meteors streaking across the sky as the yearly Geminid meteor shower reaches its crescendo. <\/p>\n
The Geminds are set to peak, or show the most activity, at 2:27 p.m. ET Thursday,\u00a0according to EarthSky. The best time to view the celestial display will be in the lead-up early that morning between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. in any time zone, said Robert Lunsford, fireball report coordinator for the American Meteor Society. <\/p>\n
In an area with clear viewing conditions and no light interference from a full moon,\u00a0NASA estimates\u00a0that the Geminids could offer up to 120 visible meteors per hour, making it the strongest annual meteor shower, or \u201cking of the meteor showers,\u201d as Lunsford called it. During this year\u2019s event, the moon will be 1% full Wednesday night heading into Thursday,\u00a0according to the society, allowing the meteors to take center stage. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt all depends on where you\u2019re viewing from. If you\u2019re in the middle of the desert, or on a mountaintop, it\u2019s entirely possible (to see up to 120 meteors). If you\u2019re in your backyard, no,\u201d Lunsford said. <\/p>\n
Realistically, a sky-gazer looking up from a backyard after midnight in an area away from light pollution would see an average rate of 60 meteors per hour, he added. <\/p>\n
The meteor shower will be visible from anywhere in the world, but those in the Southern Hemisphere will have a shorter viewing period, Lunsford said. That\u2019s because the constellation Gemini \u2014 which is the Geminids\u2019 radiant, or area from which meteors appear to originate \u2014 will be lower in the sky and is expected to rise only after midnight. <\/p>\n
Earlier this year, using data from NASA\u2019s ongoing\u00a0Parker Solar Probe mission, astronomers had found that the Geminid meteors \u2014 which are made up of debris from an asteroid named 3200 Phaethon \u2014 were most likely created by a\u00a0violent collision\u00a0between the asteroid and another space rock or some kind of gaseous explosion, according to a June study published in\u00a0The Planetary Science Journal.\u00a0The meteor shower\u2019s first recorded observation was captured in 1862. <\/p>\n
Geminid meteors are known to be intensely bright and sometimes colored due to their chemical makeup. Some of these space rocks may have more calcium, sodium or nickel than others, so a meteor in this shower could appear to be orange or yellow, or even green, Lunsford said. <\/p>\n
The Geminids have been spotted racing across the sky since November and have appeared to increase in number as Earth approaches the core of the 3200 Phaethon debris cloud. If viewing conditions are obscured by unfavorable weather, the shower will still have high rates a few days before and after the peak, Lunsford said. <\/p>\n
\u201cGrab yourself a lawn chair and find the darkest spot on your property and look about halfway up in the sky in a direction that\u2019s avoiding trees or anything, so that you can see almost down to the horizon,\u201d Lunsford said. \u201cAnd just sit back and enjoy the show. You\u2019ll see Geminid meteors shooting in all directions.\u201d <\/p>\n
The next and final major annual meteor shower of 2023 will be the Ursids, which will peak on the night of December 21 through the early morning hours of December 22, according to the\u00a0American Meteor Society. <\/p>\n\n
Sky-gazers will soon have the chance to see dozens of meteors streaking across the sky as the yearly Geminid meteor shower reaches its crescendo. The Geminds are set to peak, or show the most activity, at 2:27 p.m. ET Thursday,\u00a0according to EarthSky. The best time to view the celestial display will be in the lead-up <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12815,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}