Sky gazers are in for a treat on Monday night and early Tuesday when Geminid meteors shower will become intense and visible.
“The Geminid shower, which peaks this year, is expected to last some days and is rich in fireballs and can be seen from almost any point on Earth,” Kolkata’s M P Birla Planetarium Director Debiprosad Duari told PTI.
“It is of importance to astronomers as unlike other meteor showers which originate from leftover dust by a comet, the Geminid meteor shower is believed to be caused by the debris of asteroid ‘3200 Phaethon’,” Duari, an eminent astronomer said.
Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) President C B Devgun said in New Delhi that astro lovers will see shooting stars whizzing past the skies as the Geminid meteor showers will be seen on the night of December 13 and 14.
This time the meteor is predicted to peak tomorrow between 00:30 to 21:30 IST, Prof R C Kapoor of Indian Institute of Asrophysics told PTI.
The observers in India can look forward to a sparkling show during the night of Dec 13 and 14. It will be almost a dark sky as Moon will be in its first quarter, he said.
The ZHR (Zenithal Hourly Rate which is a measure of how many meteors one can see in an hour) for Geminids is about 80—130 per hour, which is quite high, Kapoor said.
Geminid meteor showers are active and consistent, visiting the Earth every year around this point of time, he said.
Scientists believe that ‘3200 Phaethon’ sometimes also called ‘Palladian Asteroid’, a five—km piece of rock collided with another asteroid and produced a huge amount of dust.
It travels with the asteroid in an elliptical orbit around the sun once in 1.4 years.
The Gemini constellation will be around 45 degrees above the eastern horizon, a little to the northeast of the Orion constellation.
The meteor shower was first noted in 1862, when R P Greg (Manchester, England) found a radiant in the constellation Gemini from December 10—12.
BV Marsh and AC Twining (United States) independently discovered the activity around the same time. A S Herschel noted meteors emanating from Gemini during December 12 and 13, 1863, as well as three fireballs from near the same radiant in 1863 and 1864.
During the 1870s, observations of the Geminids became more numerous as astronomers realised a new annual shower was active.
