Click to enlarge"It's the Geminid meteor shower," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "and it will peak on Dec. 13th and 14th under ideal viewing conditions." A new Moon will keep skies dark for a display that Cooke and others say could top 140 meteors per hour. According to the International Meteor Organization, maximum activity should occur around 12:10 a.m. EST (0510 UT) on Dec. 14th. The peak is broad, however, and the night sky will be rich with Geminids for many hours and perhaps even days around the maximum.
Left: A flurry of Geminids in Dec. 2008 recorded by an all-sky camera at the Marshall Space Flight Center. In the movie, note the circular halo that forms around the Moon as it arcs across the sky; that is caused by ice crystals in high clouds.Cooke offers this advice: "Watch the sky during the hours around local midnight. For North Americans, this means Sunday night to Monday morning."
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