Geminid meteor shower: Know how and when to watch meteor showers today

Today is the last chance for sky gazers to see the Geminid meteor shower in the year 2020. Geminids are widely recognised as the best annual meteor shower and can be viewed from every part of India if the sky conditions are favourable. Geminid Meteor showers occur every year around the second week of December. The best time to observe Geminids this year was from midnight to 4 am on December 14. However, if the sky is clear, then those who have missed the spectacular view will be able to witness it in the early hours of this evening (i.e., Monday evening).

What is the Geminid Meteor Shower? 

Meteors are bright streaks of dazzling light that one often sees in the night sky and they are often termed as "shooting stars".

The Geminid meteors are created by tiny bits of rocky debris (the size of sand grains to peas) shed from a small asteroid named 3200 Phaethon, which was discovered in 1983. Before then no one knew the source of the Geminid shower. Phaethon is small, only about 3 miles across, and it loops around the Sun every 1.4 years in an orbit that approaches the Sun closer than any other known asteroid.

The parent of the Geminids is 3200 Phaethon, which is arguably considered to be either an asteroid or an extinct comet.

Over the centuries bits of Phaethon have spread all along the asteroid's orbit to form a sparse, moving "river of rubble" that Earth passes through in mid-December each year. The particles are traveling 22 miles per second (79,000 mph) with respect to Earth at the place in space where we encounter them.

So when one of them dives into Earth's upper atmosphere, about 50 to 80 miles up, air friction vaporizes it in a quick, white-hot streak. Geminids travel 35 km/s -- which is over 1,000 times faster than a cheetah, about 250 times faster than the swiftest car in the world, and over 40 times faster than a speeding bullet. Rocks and dust particles from space which are about to collide with Earth's atmosphere are called meteoroids.

How to watch Geminids Meteor Shower? 

The showers are visible for nearly two weeks between 4-16 December.

"The Geminid meteor shower is expected to provide a celestial display and people will have to move out of the glare of city lights to a darker region", PTI quoted Director of M P Birla Planetarium and well-known astrophysicist Debiprasad Duari as saying.

The Geminid rate will be even better this year, as the shower's peak overlaps with a nearly new Moon, so there will be darker skies and no moonlight to wash out the fainter meteors. To observe the Geminids, try to get away from bright lights, lie on your back, and look up. Stargazers need to allow their eyes to get adjusted to the dark which can take approximately half an hour. It may be possible to see 150 meteors per hour given the sky is dark and clear.

"One should not be alarmed while viewing this heavenly phenomenon, since these meteors will cause no harm to anything on Earth", added Duari.