DEEP WEB FACTS

GEMINID METEOR SHOWER

—SPO1

One of the best meteor showers in the lunar calendar.

Expect to see up to 100 fireballs every hour.

Look towards Gemini, Orion and Taurus, so that's a huge bit of sky, so in other words- LOOK UP.

The best time this year will be on the night of December 13th and the early hours of December 14th.

You don't tend to see very much in the early evening, but things start to get more exciting from around 10pm, with the best time usually between around 12mn and 4:00am wherever you are.

Spend at least 30 minutes outside getting used to the darkness.

Try to view the skies with as little light pollution as possible, a big field, down the seafront...if you have a garden, make sure you have all the interior lights off and just look UP.

Don't lose heart if you don't see anything at first, the shooting stars come in spurts and the debris density travels through our atmosphere so when you start seeing them, they will continue for the next hour.

Don't use binoculars or telescopes because you want to view as much of the sky as possible from your perspective view.

The Geminid meteor shower takes place every December as the Earth passes through a debris trail from an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon.

As the bits of debris from the asteroid crash through the Earth's upper atmosphere they vaporises, turning into the colourful Geminid meteor shower.

Every time the 3-mile wide asteroid 3200 Phaethon orbits the Sun more bits of it break off.

It's these bits that appear as the meteor shower then they collide with Earth's orbit around the Sun.

The reason it's called the 'Geminid meteor shower' is because it's viewed from he direction of the constellation Gemini BUT it's actually caused from the '3200 Phaethon' asteroid.

It will be a great show, as long as it's clear!