The current year is one of the best years for meteor lovers, as the moon avoids appearing on the nights of the annual meteor shower, whether we talk about August 12 last, which was the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, or the evening of December 13 and 14 of this year, which is the peak of the meteor shower. Twins.
What are meteor showers?
Meteor showers constitute an interesting celestial phenomenon. On a normal evening, you may see one or two meteors with your eyes, but on the night of the Geminid meteor shower, it can reach 100 meteors per hour in remote areas.
This happens because the Earth, during its rotation around the sun, can enter into rocky remains left by a comet or a passing asteroid. These rocks enter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up, causing meteors to fall in large numbers. Geminis, in particular, result from Earth passing through rocky remains left by the asteroid 3200 Phaethon.
The Geminid shower usually begins between December 4 and 17 of each year, but its numbers are much more intense at the moment of peak, which this year will be after the afternoon of December 14, which makes the nights of the 13 and 14 of the same month An appropriate opportunity to observe meteors.
Watch a short video from NASA talking about the Geminid shower:
How can I see meteors?
Meteors usually fall from specific locations in the sky that represent the point of Earth’s collision with the remains of 3200 Phaethon, and in the case of Geminid, this area is the constellation Gemini.
If you are not an expert on the location of the stars in the sky, do not worry, as meteors fill the entire sky, and you can just find a place to lie down (on top of the roof of your house, for example) and contemplate the sky above you starting at ten in the evening, your local time, and wait for the meteors. In this context, be sure to wear heavy clothing, as the weather in December is usually cold.
In general, the number of falling meteors is proportional to the lighting of the city. In a remote place such as the desert or remote villages, you can actually observe more than 100 meteors per hour, but in a crowded city this number drops radically and reaches less than 10 meteors per hour.
