Dark Knight
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The Geminid meteor shower, a reliable annual display, peaks tonight and into the pre-dawn. For skywatchers with dark, clear skies, this dazzling display should produce up to 120 meteors per hour.
The best time to watch is tonight or anytime between midnight and dawn Thursday.
Unlike the highly-touted Leonid meteor shower, which disappointed many skywatchers last month, the Geminids are known for dependability.
"Start watching on Wednesday evening, Dec. 13, around 9 p.m. local time," said Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "The display will start small but grow in intensity as the night wears on. By Thursday morning, Dec. 14, people in dark, rural areas could see one or two meteors every minute."
The Geminids are bits of debris cast off by 3200 Phaeton, a strange asteroid-like object that scientists think might be a burned-out comet. "No one can decide what it is," Cooke said.
The object orbits the Sun and crosses the path of Earth's orbit. Pieces of material typically no larger than a pea vaporize as they slam into Earth's atmosphere.
Geminids tend to be slow compared to other shooting stars, and some of them will be very bright.
"This shower has a reputation for being rich both in slow, bright, graceful meteors and fireballs as well as faint meteors, with relatively fewer objects of medium brightness," said Joe Rao, SPACE.com's skywatching columnist. "Many appear yellowish in hue. Some even appear to form jagged or divided paths."
Viewing tips and more at link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20061213/sc_space/yearsbestmeteorshowerpeakstonight&printer=1
The best time to watch is tonight or anytime between midnight and dawn Thursday.
Unlike the highly-touted Leonid meteor shower, which disappointed many skywatchers last month, the Geminids are known for dependability.
"Start watching on Wednesday evening, Dec. 13, around 9 p.m. local time," said Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "The display will start small but grow in intensity as the night wears on. By Thursday morning, Dec. 14, people in dark, rural areas could see one or two meteors every minute."
The Geminids are bits of debris cast off by 3200 Phaeton, a strange asteroid-like object that scientists think might be a burned-out comet. "No one can decide what it is," Cooke said.
The object orbits the Sun and crosses the path of Earth's orbit. Pieces of material typically no larger than a pea vaporize as they slam into Earth's atmosphere.
Geminids tend to be slow compared to other shooting stars, and some of them will be very bright.
"This shower has a reputation for being rich both in slow, bright, graceful meteors and fireballs as well as faint meteors, with relatively fewer objects of medium brightness," said Joe Rao, SPACE.com's skywatching columnist. "Many appear yellowish in hue. Some even appear to form jagged or divided paths."
Viewing tips and more at link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20061213/sc_space/yearsbestmeteorshowerpeakstonight&printer=1
