Posted on 12/13/2013 8:17:43 PM PST by canuck_conservative
....The Geminids come from a small asteroid named 3200 Phaethon, which passes quite close to the sun. Its trail of dust and debris is what makes up the Geminids. Earth passes through this stream of debris every December.
“Most meteor showers come from comets, which spew ample meteoroids for a night of ‘shooting stars.’ The Geminid meteor shower is different,” NASA writes in their Geminids site. “The parent is not a comet, but a weird rocky object named 3200 Phaethon that sheds very little dusty debris — not nearly enough to explain the Geminids.”....
“The Geminids are my favourite because they defy explanation,” Bill Cooke, lead for NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, said in a release. “Of all the debris streams Earth passes through every year, the Geminids are by far the most massive. When we add up the amount of dust in the Geminid stream, it outweighs other streams by factors of 5 to 500.”
On Tuesday night this week a meteor rattled homes as it exploded over Tucson, Arizona, but scientists said the meteor didn’t seem to be a part of the Geminids meteor shower. The meteor was travelling too slowly and the wrong direction to be a Geminid, Cooke told CNN.
“A Geminid moves at 78,000 mph,” Cooke said. The Tucson meteor was moving at half that speed. Cooke says that this was just an every-day meteor, albeit a big one.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalpost.com ...
Not here it won’t.
The best viewing for these is after midnight, because then your part of the Earth is turning around into the oncoming meteor shower, sort of like walking around into a blowing snowstorm.
unfortunately it is overcast here
Currently in the middle of a snow shower. Maybe next year.
I'll try to see what I can with the moon at my back.
Hahaha...it is 10 degrees, and I just went out in my backyard to take a quick look...completely overcast.
Good thing..I might have been tempted to stay out there a few minutes.
I was in jogging shorts and t-shirt...otherwise it wouldn’t have been problematic!
Up early for work here in the west. In 4 minutes, I saw 2 strong, two medium and two weak meteors. The strongest were in the southeast sky. Really good!
Thanks canuck_conservative, extra to APoD.
"The parent is not a comet, but a weird rocky object named 3200 Phaethon that sheds very little dusty debris -- not nearly enough to explain the Geminids"... "The Geminids are my favourite because they defy explanation," Bill Cooke, lead for NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, said in a release. "Of all the debris streams Earth passes through every year, the Geminids are by far the most massive. When we add up the amount of dust in the Geminid stream, it outweighs other streams by factors of 5 to 500."Imagine that. :')
|
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