Thursday night will play host to the dazzling Geminid meteor shower that could treat viewers to as much as 100 meteors per hour. The meteor shower should peak between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time, according to experts, and the visibility will be excellent thanks to the moon entering a new phase.
"Meteors from the new shower (if any) will be visible in the early evening, with the Geminids making their appearance later on and lasting until dawn," Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, explained.
The moon will be a sliver on Thursday night, giving cosmic observers a glare-free dark backdrop to view the meteor shower - which should be spectacular if the experts are right.
"While the Perseid meteors in August snare more media attention, Thursday's Geminid meteors almost always outperform them," says Geoff Chester from the U.S. Naval Observatory in the blog Capital Weather Gang.
The Geminid meteor shower is one of only two meteor showers that do not originate from a comet. Instead, the Geminids, named so because they seems to come from the constellation Gemini, originate from the asteroid 3200 Pantheon. The Geminid meteor shower should appear slow moving compared to other meteor showers, making it even more awe-inspiring.
You can watch a live web chat with NASA meteor experts from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. EST. The web chat will also include a live stream of the meteor shower from a camera at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
A second, smaller meteor shower could be making a guest appearance near the constellation Pisces on Thursday night as well, according to NASA.