A Gemini meteorite is trapped in its final, burning moments.
NASA
The Perseid The meteor shower attracts a lot of attention as it is active on hot summer nights in the Northern Hemisphere, but the Geminites are actually quite strong for many years, and conditions are excellent this year. The 2020 Gemini meteor shower is now officially active and heading towards its biggest peak. On Sundays, December 13 and Mondays, December 14, up to 150 meteors per hour can be seen under ideal conditions.
Even better, it’s one of the few big meteor showers that does not require waking up well at dawn to catch the best part. According to the American Meteorological Association, Geminites “provide good performance before midnight because the Gemini galaxy has been well placed since 22:00.”
This means that the sky where the meteorite is exposed is placed high in the sky at the beginning of the night. It can be very high at 2am local time, but going out before midnight gives you a good chance to see a lot more. In addition, those hours are the best time to see bright, slow-moving “earth crazers” on the horizon.
Sky & Telescope magazine predicts that the moment of peak activity for the 2020 Geminids will arrive at PT (8 pm ET) at 5pm, making it ideal for many Americans to catch them before bedtime.
“It’s worth bravely assessing the cold at the peak of this rain,” says Diana Hannikenen, author of Sky & Telescope. “Geminits offers the best viewing of ‘shooting stars’ throughout the year.”
Bottom line: Not a bad time to search for Geminites. Also, you don’t Required Staring at Gemini to find Geminits. Meteors can appear anywhere in the night sky, but usually move In the distance From Gemini.
2020 Perseid meteor shower photos shine brightly in the dark year
See all photos
Luckily the moon will do its part to provide those conditions by reducing itself to those nights. As the new moon falls on December 14th, it will be only the tiniest sandal of a moon. The rest have the ability to detect from the light a broad, clear view of the local weather and night sky. Pollution.
If you can manage it, all you have to do is dress properly, step back, adjust your eyes, relax and look. Geminites can range from pale, quick “shooting stars” to bright, intense color lines, and even a fireball here and there. You will have the best odds of finding meteorites in the Northern Hemisphere, but Geminites are visible south of the equator, then at night and in low numbers.
If the weather does not cooperate, the virtual telescope project in Rome plans to hold an online surveillance party.
A meteor shower comes to us as the Earth passes through clouds of debris by visiting comets. In the case of Geminites, the debris comes from so-called “rock comets” 3200 Python, Which is thought to be a perishable comet orbiting the inner solar system.
Hope to put together a Gemini glamor gallery this year. If you can capture astronomical photography and capture some great meteor shots, share them with me on Twitter or Instagram Ric EricMake.