Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
METEOR SHOW IS HERE
Tonight, conditions are right for viewing spectacular shower of space debris
The most spectacular meteor shower of the year will take place tonight and early Thursday morning, as Earth passes through the dust cloud of an asteroid and experiences a bombardment of debris traveling faster than any spacecraft.
Clear skies are forecast for South Florida. The best viewing may be from the beach, because the meteors will appear to be coming from the northeast, and a dark sky, which is hard to find amid South Florida’s city lights, will make the meteors easier to see.
The asteroid, a three-mile-wide rock called 3200 Phaethon, will remain a comfortable 6.4 million miles away. But its enormous debris cloud will create the annual event called the Geminid meteor shower, named for the apparent center of the shower in the constellation Gemini.
“The Geminids offer slow, brighter than average meteors with some having hints of color, reds and yellows,” said Eric Vandernoot, astronomy and physics lab coordinator
at Florida Atlantic University. “As for the best of the year, well, that often depends on the lunar phase at the time. This year’s Geminids are very favorable for viewing.”
The show will compensate for the flop of the Perseid meteor shower in August, when the glare of a full moon snuffed most viewers’ attempts to appreciate the event.
“With August’s Perseids obscured by bright moonlight, the Geminids will be the best shower this year,” Bill Cooke, with NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, said in a news release.
A waning crescent moon will preside over the Geminids, casting insufficient light to blot out the show.
Starting in early evening, the meteors will grow in number, reaching a peak of 100 an hour between midnight and 4 a.m., creating streaks of fire as they fly through the atmosphere at 22 miles per second.
But in a way, the earlier part of the show may be more spectacular. Although there will be fewer meteors, the ones that do appear will last longer, making streaks on the night sky as they skim the atmosphere.
The meteors could appear anywhere in the sky, because the entire planet will be passing through the cloud, Vandernoot said, although the best place to look will be to the northeast.
“The only thing for folks to do is to travel to find a wide-open space away from city lights to see the meteors,” he said. “If that is too difficult for them, then I often advise people to head east towards the shore. Much of the shower will tend to come from the east as the Earth rotates into the debris train of the asteroid Phaethon.”