Big Show Geminid Meteor Shower In Winter Sky Tonite and Tomorrow

Check out the spectacular show of Geminid meteor showers this week.

From Denny: You know you are smitten with astronomy when you are willing to brave the December night cold just to look up and view the sky. Well, tonight and tomorrow night you will not be disappointed for all your inconvenience. The Geminids are considered the best view of all the annual meteor showers to see.

November had the Leonid meteor shower and where I live it was cloudy and a washout. Bummer. But tonight is clear and oh, so very cold thanks to "the lake effect" weather coming down in an Arctic blast from the Great Lakes region. Why is it the best sky viewing is always when it's stone cold? :) The Geminid meteor shower reaches its peak show-off performance tonight and tomorrow so make sure to get out there to take a look.

Gemini constellation


As you guessed the Geminids are named for the constellation of good ol' Gemini, also known as the Twins to astrologers. To those of us gazing up at the night sky from Earth it will appear the shooting stars originate from this constellation. The shooting stars will appear to emanate from an area nearest the bright star of the Gemini constellation called Castor.

Sky Map 

Check out this sky map for best viewing about 1 AM EST on 14 Dec 2010 when the shower peaks.

What causes a meteor shower?

The vast majority of meteor showers tend to be caused by the fragments of old comets that get scattered along the comet's orbit. As our Earth passes through a comet's orbit, it gathers up those fragments. The fragments get heated up by friction with our planet's atmosphere to incandescence, now becoming visible as very bright streaks of light.

Asteroid Phaethon


Of course, just like the personality for which they are named, the Geminids like to be different. They do not originate from a comet but from an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon. This asteroid is one odd duck too. It likes to take chances, like orbiting closer to the sun than any other known asteroid, even to the point of getting inside the orbit of planet Mercury. It dances in its orbit like a comet instead of like an asteroid. Yet Phaethon cannot be called a comet. A comet is defined with features like a dust tail, a gas jet and a coma. Phaethon exhibits none of these features. Some astronomers believe Phaeton may be the dead nucleus of a burned-out comet that somehow got trapped into an unusually tight orbit.

You will be able to see the meteor showers all night long in various places in the night sky. The showers will be faster and brighter after midnight. The moon will set very close to midnight which will allow the fainter meteors to be better viewed.

Facts about the Geminids

Here's are a couple of curious facts about the Geminids. They move slower than their summer cousins, the Perseids. An amusing fact is that the Geminids often end their streak across the sky with a tiny explosion so you actually may hear a distinct popping sound.

Geminids of the past have often displayed as slow, bright and graceful meteors, even fireballs. Many have appeared as yellowish in color. Some form jagged or divided paths. Geminids are also far denser than the typical comet dust flakes from the usual commonplace meteor showers, weighing in at about .07 pounds per cubic inch or 2 grams per cubic centimeter. Gemini is well named for it likes to impress. Their speed in slower than the Leonid showers, clocked at about 22 miles per second or 35 km. This slower speed makes it possible for them to linger in the sky a bit longer for enjoyable viewing.

Usually, our planet moves quickly through a meteor stream. The general rule is that the rate of meteors increases steadily for about two to three days before hitting its height. Then it will drop off sharply, lasting for about a day or so after the peak.

Geminids and best viewing 

The fun about these December Geminids is not only are they especially bright for easy viewing, there will be a few renegade forerunners and late stragglers for a good week or more both before and after the peak time. Astronomers have just recently discovered that the Geminids are appearing as early as November 30, something unexpected.

The peak time will be closer to sunrise on 14 December 2010 at about 6 AM EST. You can expect to see any where from about 60 to 120 Geminid meteors about every hour. Here in North America - it was about time - we get to be the ones best situated to view this wonderful sky event at the crest of the shower. Even though the moon will still interfere with its light, you will be able to view some meteors as early as 10 PM. This meteor shower stream is considered to be "young" - only a few thousand years old. I guess the Geminids have had plenty of time to perfect their showing off. Check out the sky gems!



*** Photo by Wally Pacholka of AstroPics.com, a Geminid fireball explodes over the Mojave Desert on Dec. 13, 2009

Check Out Spectacular August Perseid Meteor Showers

*** Look up in the middle of the night to see as many as 100 shooting stars above your head for a spectacular show brought to you by the Universe!





From Denny: Every August we night sky watchers get to enjoy the Perseid meteor showers. This year it's supposed to be spectacular with hundreds whizzing by in the sky for our enjoyment. It peaks from midnight to dawn. In my area there will probably be cloud cover like most years but I'm still getting up in the middle of the night hoping to catch a glimpse. Hot and humid Louisiana is not exactly the best viewing of astronomical events. :)

Meteor showers are made up of what?

This famous meteor shower is actually the exhaust plume of the comet called 109/Swift-Tuttle. We really have to work on getting scientists to employ a Romance era English professor - who secretly writes modern day romance novels on the side for outrageous income - to come up with some better and more creative names.

So here's what happens as this ST comet enters the inner solar system. As it whips around the sun it starts heating up. The ice pockets on the comet melt, pretty much skip the liquid stage just for fun, and turn into gas. Those ice pockets also spew out dust and rock chunks as the ice is coming loose. Like any good drama queen exiting the stage, as this comet exits the inner solar system, there is still the long train of a debris trail that remains for our Earth to pass through. And we on Earth find this process terribly romantic as we gaze up toward the heavens.

Planet Earth started its move into Swift-Tuttle’s stream of dust by the middle of July. "The debris is a very old stream that has been building for a long time and is a very dense concentration of dust," says Peter Jenniskens, a meteor researcher at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.

"Indeed, if you look back at records from the Middle Ages, you can see that people in the Middle Ages were seeing the Perseid meteor shower," he says. This year the Perseid shower is trumpeted to be above average.

How much will you see?

Under the best of conditions this meteor shower may generate up to 100 meteors an hour. It all depends upon just how dark your skies are going to be so you have to know your area. If you are in an area where you can hike up to the top of a mountain you can expect to see up to 108 meteors an hour. The peak viewing hours are from 3 AM to 4 AM Eastern Standard Time. And the official word is too that our night sky will be having a double feature: a waning-gibbous moon. Read that as it's a new moon so the Perseid shower won't have to compete with a lot of moonlight.

"Earth will be passing through a denser patch of Swift-Tuttle's dust stream than usual," according to William Cooke, who heads NASA's Meteroid Environment Office at the Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. "The main dust stream got a slight stir from Saturn, and we're also running into a patch of material the comet off-loaded in 1479," Cooke explains.







Why called the Perseid shower?

The meteors appear to be emerging from the area of the night sky that contains the constellation Perseus. For some good advice of how to photograph this event and some more detailed viewing tips check out the American Meteor Society's website.

Check out the "Fluxtimator." You can check out what is likely to happen in your area for meteor showers besides this August show of the Perseid. The graph will automatically adjust itself to give you the best viewing times for your location when you select which meteor shower, your nearest major urban area, your viewing conditions and the date. It will even tell you how many of those famous shooting stars you are likely to see.

If your alarm clock fails to rouse you tonight, don't worry. You still have a chance the next morning at about the same times.

History of the Swift-Tuttle comet

This comet was discovered as far back in history as 1862 by two astronomers: Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle. They both saw this comet within days of each other. I guess they agreed to both claim bragging rights - so the astronomy community decided to split the difference and name the comet after both of them.

This comet swings around our sun once in every 133.28 years. The last time we saw it was back in 1992 and it will return again in 2126, assuming we all survive the Mayan predictions of 2012. Astronomers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are pretty excited about the next visit. They say it should be spectacular because the comet will pass so close to Earth, by a distance of only 14 million miles.

The Oort cloud is where the Swift-Tuttle comet originated. The Oort cloud is this huge spherically shaped cloud made up of frozen leftovers from when the solar system was formed, about 4.6 billion years ago. The word is that when the ST comet was passing through the inner solar system that planet Jupiter took an interest and captured it. After that event about 160,000 years ago the comet's orbit around the sun shrank.

While Jupiter was successful at rounding up this comet into the zone Jupiter's gravity was not able to reel in this comet to become part of the short-period comets stable. Those guys reappear about every 20 years or even in less time. This ST comet proved difficult to tame and joined the ranks of comets like Halley's Comet, having an orbital period that could range from 20 to 200 years.

Every time the ST comet tours through the inner solar system it makes a teasing pass across Jupiter's orbit. Yet it manages to remain just out of reach of grasping Jupiter so the ST comet's travel plans and path are never significantly altered. This is one crafty stealthy comet determined to remain free to do as it will. One thing is for sure is that every time the ST comet passes by it slowly thickens that famous dust stream it leaves behind for us all on Earth to admire.

The best place to view this comet will be in the Northern Hemisphere. Yeah, since I live in south Louisiana on the Gulf of Mexico I only get to view about 30 to 40 meteors an hour - and that's at the peak. It's still worth the spectacular view in the wee hours of the morning.






To enjoy your night out watching the sky for free from the University of Texas's McDonald Observatory:

* Try to drive out to a safe and secure dark spot outside your city or town where you can reduce the light pollution that will interfere with your viewing. Be sure to arrive early enough to allow for your eyes to adjust to the dark. Here in Louisiana we do have a small observatory in a large park setting where city residents go for these events.

* Make sure you have a low horizon to the northeast. This is where the constellation Perseus will rise.

* Either lay on a blanket or a chaise lounge you've brought just for this purpose (you plan-ahead person, you) and position yourself so the horizon is just within your peripheral vision. Since Perseus moves across the night sky, be ready to tweak your viewing position as it does so.

* As the folks at the observatory say: "Treat meteor watching like you would the 4th of July fireworks. Pack comfortable chairs, bug spray, food and drinks, blankets, plus a red-filtered flashlight for reading maps and charts without ruining your night vision. Binoculars are not necessary. Your eyes will do just fine."

* If you need a quick red filter for your flashlight, try picking up a tail-light repair kit from your local auto-parts store. The red plastic works well and is fairly easy to cut.

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Astronomers and the night sky Photo by Peter Petrov


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Astronomy: Where Do All the Perseid Meteor Showers Come From During August Nights?

From Denny: Have you been enjoying the meteor showers the past week? They were the best on August 12th. Unfortuately, my sky was heavy with rain clouds that night and the next so I missed the biggest show of meteors. Hopefully, some of you got a much better view than I did.

Even this morning around 4:30 AM we went out and saw a few meteors streaking across the sky! Yay! There are still a few sky crumbs left to enjoy as there have been the past few days since my sky cleared! :)

We just pull out the lawn chairs, sit in the dark with the cats who lounge around and we all sip good strong Louisiana coffee au lait to start our morning! The moon sliver was on its back today and around here that means cooler weather is coming. We are so ready for a break from this heat index of 109 degrees F. daily.

Here's what astronomer Chris Peterson from Cloudbait Observatory had to comment today about where the Perseid meteor showers originate: "In terms of direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of Perseus. That is why the last week's meteor shower was known as the Perseids -- the meteors all appear to come from a radiant toward Perseus.

"Three dimensionally, however, sand-sized debris expelled from Comet Swift-Tuttle follows a well-defined orbit about our Sun, and the part of the orbit that approaches Earth is superposed in front of the Perseus. Therefore, when Earth crosses this orbit, the radiant point of falling debris appears in Perseus.

"Pictured above, a composite image of this year's Pereids meteor shower shows many bright meteors that streaked through the sky on August 12. To the surprise of many, the next night, August 13, also showed many meteors, as demonstrated by rolling one's cursor over the above image by going here.

"This year's Leonids meteor shower in November is expected by some to be exceptionally active, perhaps producing as many as 500 meteors per hour."

Photo from Astronomy Pic of the Day This is a composite image of 96 meteors collected between sunset on August 11 through sunrise on August 12.

From Denny: Make sure you check out all the linked words in this post as there are some fabulous photos and more information, including a chart of constellations you will enjoy.

I can't wait until November for the next big show of meteor showers! Hard to imagine 500 meteors an hour...


astronomy, Perseid meteor showers, meteors, Perseus, constellations