One of the brightest recurring meteor showers in the sky is done in mid to late December, and that the Geminids are. This year, due to the nearly new moon, they should see a large eye. For best viewing conditions, must be prepared to stay up long, though. The shower will usually start at 9:30 local time clock in the northern hemisphere or at midnight in the southern hemisphere, at the peak of 13-14.
To the Geminids on the ground, look about half a degree north ofBurn Castor and Pollux in the sky, the shoulders of the twins, and you'll see shooting stars moving rapidly across the sky as fragments of dust and a few pebbles in the earth's atmosphere. At the peak of the Geminids is anywhere from 100 to 140 "shooting stars produce" per hour. Of course, meteors have nothing to do with stars, and this meteor shower was discovered over 100 years ago.
The Geminids were first discovered in 1861 and have repeated (with different intensities)every year thereafter. Originally conceived as an anomaly, since they are not associated with a comet (as) shown with the Perseids, which were eventually Gemenids linked to a near-Earth object as 3200 Phaethon. 3200 Phaethon is a comet-like highly eccentric orbit with a period of 1.41 years, and current thinking is that the dried peel of a comet Phaethon, lost is all part of its volatiles from near the sun rises (it is the Halfway Mercury not. periastron)
3200 Phaethon is only visible even though for someone with a medium to large telescopes. The closest approach to Earth at 11 million kilometers, will be seen in the constellation Virgo too. In just 5 km in diameter and with an average albedo 3200 Phaethon will be about as bright as A 14.5 magnitude star. 3200 Phaeton is in the category of objects as potential impact hazards to Earth. 5 km in diameter, it is about half the diameter of the ChixluhubImpactor, that time seems to have ended before the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Since its discovery in 1861, the Geminids have been increasing, especially in the last few decades.
Why is this so? Now, Jupiter's gravity has in fact when they appeared on Phaethon's debris stream, making it move more and more on the orbit of the earth. As each year brings us deeper into the debris stream.
In fact, meteor expert Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario(UWO) says:
"Based on the modeling of the debris by Jim Jones in the UWO Meteor Group did back in the 1980s, it is likely that Geminids will increase activity for the coming decades, perhaps the 20% to 50% higher than current prices
Thus, this provides a good shower and could only get better. But the best way to find out is to check it out for yourself.
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