The Geminids, one of the brightest recurring meteor showers in the sky happens, from the 7th to 17 December.
What will you see and when?
You will be when the Geminids because of their radient in the constellation Gemini, and due to the nearly New Moon skies in 2009 known, they should see a large eye.
For best viewing conditions, must be prepared to stay up long, though. The shower is generally at 9:30 local time clock for the initiationin the northern hemisphere and at midnight when you are in the southern hemisphere.
To the Geminids on the ground, look about half a degree from the stars 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 burn a few pebbles in the earth's atmosphere. At its peak on 14 December 5h10m UT (Universal Time or GMT), the Geminids will be somewhere per 100 to 140 "shooting stars produce"Hour.
The best way to a meteor shower is only one comfortable chair or lying down can picnic mat and pillow. Sit back and show off your feet in the direction of the radiant look above and around him, as the meteors can be quite a distance from the radient begin.
What are they?
The Geminids were first discovered in 1861 and have repeated (with varying intensity of each subsequent year) thereafter.
Originally conceived as an anomaly, because they do notassociated with a comet (as) shown with the Perseids, which were eventually Gemenids linked to a near-Earth object as 3200 Phaethon.
Phaethon 3200 found that a comet like a very eccentric orbit with a period of 1.41 years, when discovered it in 1983. The current status is that the dried peel of a comet Phaethon, lost is all part of its volatiles from near the sun rises (it is around half the distance at perihelion Mercury does not.)
3200 Phaethon is onlyseen someone with a large telescope, because of its weakness. At its closest approach to Earth at 11 million kilometers, will be seen in the constellation Virgo. In just 5 km in diameter and with an average albedo from 3200 Phaethon is like a star, the brightness of 14.5. 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 impactor Chixchulub who have completed at the time of the dinosaurs and 65 seemsMillion years ago.
Phaethon's other notable feature is that they are nearer the sun than any other cataloged asteroids approaches. The surface temperature reached at its next (perihelion) was about 1025 Kelvin.
This explains why it was named after the Greek mythology, Phaeton, son of the sun god Helios.
3200 Phaethon approach is relatively close to Earth on 14 December 2093, passing within 0.0198 AU (astronomical units) or 2.97 million kilometers.
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