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come in spurts and are interspersed by lulls. So give yourself at least an hour to watch the Geminids.
• The Geminids rank as one of the best meteor showers for the year in the Northern Hemisphere. You can also see this shower from the tropical and subtropical regions in the Southern Hemisphere. Farther south, the radiant of the Geminid meteor shower never gets very high in the sky, so the meteors are not as prevalent at temperate southerly latitudes.
• This meteor shower gets its name from the constellation Gemini the Twins. If you trace the paths of all the Geminid meteors backward, they appear to radiate from the certain point in front of Gemini. This point is called the meteor shower radiant, and is located near the star Castor.
• Just remember, you don't have to find the meteor shower radiant to see the Geminid meteors, for these meteors shoot all over the sky. You don't need special equipment - only a dark, open sky. Simply look upward and enjoy the company of family and friends.
• Most meteor showers take place when our planet Earth crosses the orbital path of a comet. The comet debris plunges into Earth's upper atmosphere, and the vaporizing particles fill the night with meteors. But the Geminid meteor shower appears to be an oddity. The shower's parent body appears to be a near-Earth asteroid, rather than a comet. Astronomers have named this object 3200 Phaethon.
• If your sky is cloudy tonight, don't let that stop you from watching the Geminid shower on Friday night, December 14 (or Saturday night, December 15, if you're in Asia). The Geminids may be past their peak by then, but this shower should still produce a decent sprinkling of meteors. The Geminids are fairly sparse at mid-evening but increase in number by late evening and might be best around 2 to 3 a.m. Meanwhile, evening is the time to look for that possible new meteor shower.
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