The final meteor shower of 2012 has arrived.
The Geminid meteor shower will start appearing through the night skies by 10 p.m. local time and will continue with a peak of 2 a.m. local time. The peak time is when at least 120 meteors are expected to scatter the night sky, that's at least two meteors per minute.
NASA is providing a live stream of the Geminid meteor shower from a camera at their Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
The meteor shower falls under two unique moments.
The first is the new moon phase. The moon is entering a new phase, which will provide dark skies, therefore, better visibility to see Geminid.
The second is additional meteors, due to a comet. The comet Wirtanen might appear with Geminid, providing additional and unnamed meteor showers.
Wirtanen's meteors doesn't have a name yet as astronomers will have to wait to see if it is real, according to NASA's Dr. Tony Phillips. He added that if Wirtanen does indeed create a meteor shower, then it is likely to be named "Piscids."
"The shower's radiant is located in the constellation Pisces, according to Maslov's dynamical models of the debris stream," noted Dr. Phillips. "Maslov also predicts that the meteors will be very slow moving, which should help novice sky watchers distinguish them from the faster Geminids."
Meanwhile the Geminids originate from a three-mile wide asteroid titled 3200 Phaethon but was named after the constellation Gemini, since it falls near one of its primary stars named Castor, noted the Los Angeles Times.
"Dust from [Wirtanen] hitting Earth's atmosphere could produce as many as 30 meteors per hour," said NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office Director Bill Cooke.
- Contribute to this Story:
- Send us a tip
- Send us a photo or video
- Suggest a correction
