Geminids best meteor shower in 2006?
Geminid meteor shower image courtesy Joe Orman.
Look here for the top 10 tips for viewing the 2006 Geminid meteor shower.
DB: This is Earth & Sky for Wednesday, December 13, 2006. The annual Geminid meteor shower peaks tonight. For many meteor shower enthusiasts, the Geminids rank as a favorite. It’s proven to be a consistent and prolific shower, often producing 50 or more meteors per hour.
JB: The Geminid meteors start flying through the sky around mid–evening in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere, this meteor show starts a bit later tonight. The moderately fast Geminid meteors slice through Earth’s atmosphere at some 35 kilometers – or 22 miles – per second. The meteors streak across the sky with their rather bright, colorfully–lit yellow trails.
DB: The Geminid meteors are named for the constellation Gemini the Twins. If you were to track these Geminid meteors backwards on the sky’s dome, you’d find them streaming from the same point in the sky. This point – called the radiant – lies close to Gemini’s bright star, Castor. But you don’t need to know Gemini to see the meteor shower. Tonight’s Geminid meteors will streak all over the sky.
JB: And you don’t need any special equipment to see the Geminids, either. Just find a dark sky, and enjoy the comfort of a reclining lawn chair and the warmth of a sleeping bag. Though the waning crescent moon will rise about an hour after midnight, the moonlight shouldn’t be so overpowering as to ruin the show. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth & Sky.
Gary W. Kronk expects the Geminids to peak on December 14, 2006, at 8:19 a.m. Universal Time (2:19 a.m. Central Time). If this forecast holds, people in North America will have a ringside seat to this year’s Geminids — and perhaps a view of the finest meteor display of the year!
The Geminids are a real oddity as far as meteor showers go. When the Earth enters into the orbital stream of a comet, the cometary debris slamming into the Earth’s atmosphere vaporizes, and this results in a meteor shower. This site provides a listing of meteor showers and their parent comets (if known). Unlike other major meteor showers, however, the parent of the Geminid meteor shower is not a typical comet but a mysterious body named Phaethon 3200. This solar system object is termed an Apollo (near–Earth) asteroid, and it might be a dormant comet.
Observing the Geminids by Gary W.Kronk
History of the Geminids by Gary W. Kronk
History of the Geminids – 2004 article by Monica Bobra
Observing Meteors by Jeff Kanipe
Meteor Showers by Exploration
Meteors and meteor showers by Francis Reddy
Is the meteor perdictied to hit earth?
Hello Shari, no, the meteors from the Geminid shower are just bits of icy debris – no larger than rice grains – that vaporize completely as they fall through Earth’s atmosphere.
No known comet or asteroid is predicted to be on a collision course with Earth at this time.