The Best Meteor Shower of 2017 Peaks Tonight
Brave the cold and head out tonight to see what may well turn out to be the year’s best display of bright meteors: the Geminids! Little bits of dusty debris from the oddball ‘rock comet’ 3200 Phaeton slam into the upper atmosphere of our planet at some 35 km/s (79,000 miles per hour), leaving glowing trails that appear to ‘radiate’ away from the constellation Gemini (the small red cross in the figure above). Like train tracks converging in the distance, these bright trails are actually more or less parallel to each other, and their apparent origin at a common ‘vanishing point’ is an illusion. As they encounter our atmosphere at high speed, they are heated by friction with air molecules until they briefly glow at a temperature of several thousand degrees, being almost completely vaporized while still dozens of kilometers above the ground. The meteor debris is ionized, emitting bright colors with the characteristic fingerprints of their constituent atoms.
(AccuWeather graphic)
2017 is an especially good year for this meteor shower because it occurs within a few nights of new moon, so the meteors won’t compete with moonlight for attention. The best time to see Geminids is within about two hours of local midnight. Look high in the east, but let your gaze wander around, for the meteors will be seen anywhere over roughly half of the night sky. No optical aid is necessary to see them, and your eyes are best equipped for the task: many Geminids are as bright as the brightest stars in the sky. Under good conditions and a dark sky, expect to see around 50-75 meteors per hour. So stay up late, keep warm, and enjoy this celestial holiday show!