GREENSBORO, N.C. — Clear skies is the perfect forecast for a night with a meteor shower, especially the Geminid meteor shower expected to make it's debut peak on Monday, December 13. If you face north, the best time to spot the shower will be around 2 am with some meteors visible as early as 10 am. This shower is the most reliable of all the meteor showers throughout the year because we can expect to see 60 or more meteors each hour with bursts of 3 to 5 of even more per minute! (There may be brief moments of nothing!) The moon, during the shower's peak, will be a waxing gibbous. So, some of the fainter meteors will be a bit difficult to see due to the moon's light.
This meteor shower is caused by the debris of the 3200 Phaethon, which is one the few asteroids to produce a meteor shower. The meteor moves at about 79,000 mph! That is literally 1,000 times the speed you can drive on I-40. The Geminids can be seen around the world, but are best viewed across the Northern Hemisphere.
With high pressure in place across much of the southeast, there should be no active weather to hinder our friends and families in South Carolina from sharing in viewing the sky! This meteor shower has been active since December 4th and will conclude on the 17th.
NASA will live stream the shower's peak via a meteor camera at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama starting at 9 p.m. EST on the NASA Meteor Watch Facebook page.
