The Geminid meteor shower, considered one of the best of the year due to its abundance, will take place this year from December 4 to 17 and the best moment of observation, its peak in the number of visible meteors will occur on the night of December 13 to December 14 . At that time, there will be more meteors per hour in the sky; an estimated 120 per hour if the sky is clear.
In addition, this year the Moon will not be an obstacle for observation, since our satellite will still be in the new moon phase (with a presence of 9.4%), the best to contemplate this astronomical spectacle.
The person responsible for this meteor shower is not a comet, but an asteroid: Phaethon (probably an extinct comet whose particles were ejected centuries ago). This particular asteroid has a diameter of just over 5 kilometers and is known as the “son of the Sun”, as it is the asteroid that comes closest to our star. It was discovered in 1983 thanks to the IRAS satellite and has an orbital period around the Sun of 3.3 years.
The “shooting stars” will start from the constellation Gemini -its radiant-, hence its name and, after sunset, it will remain above the horizon throughout the night (it can be seen throughout the sky) , a condition more than satisfactory to spend an early morning with your eyes on our heavenly vault.
Meteors are bright, produced by tiny grains of dust just a few millimeters thick, striking Earth’s atmosphere at 35 kilometers per second, burning about 80 kilometers above our surface.
