Mysterious Geminid Meteor Shower begins Tuesday


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The upcoming Geminid meteor shower next week may promise to be the best sky show of the year, but for many scientists it's a space light show shrouded in mystery.

Skywatchers should catch a nice view of the beguiling phenomenon between local midnight and sunrise on Tuesday, Dec. 14.

Most meteor showers come from comets, which spew ample meteoroids for a night of shooting stars. The Geminids are different. Their source is not a comet but a strange rocky object named 3200 Phaethon that sheds very little dusty debris — not nearly enough to explain the Geminids.

"The Geminids are my favorite, because they defy explanation," said NASA astronomer Bill Cooke, a meteor expert at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Meteor showers are created when the Earth passes through a stream of small space rocks, which then burn up as they pass through the atmosphere, creating so-called "shooting stars." But astronomers still don't know where all the rocky material for the Geminid shower comes from.

"Of all the debris streams Earth passes through every year, the Geminids' is by far the most massive," Cooke said in a statement. "When we add up the amount of dust in the Geminid stream, it outweighs other streams by factors of 5 to 500."

This month when Earth passes through the Geminid debris stream it will produce as many as 120 meteors per hour over dark-sky sites.

Bundle up, go outside and savor the mystery.

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The upcoming Geminid meteor shower next week may promise to be the best sky show of the year, but for many scientists it's a space light show shrouded in mystery.

Skywatchers should catch a nice view of the beguiling phenomenon between local midnight and sunrise on Tuesday, Dec. 14.

Most meteor showers come from comets, which spew ample meteoroids for a night of shooting stars. The Geminids are different. Their source is not a comet but a strange rocky object named 3200 Phaethon that sheds very little dusty debris ? not nearly enough to explain the Geminids.

"The Geminids are my favorite, because they defy explanation," said NASA astronomer Bill Cooke, a meteor expert at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Meteor showers are created when the Earth passes through a stream of small space rocks, which then burn up as they pass through the atmosphere, creating so-called "shooting stars." But astronomers still don't know where all the rocky material for the Geminid shower comes from.

"Of all the debris streams Earth passes through every year, the Geminids' is by far the most massive," Cooke said in a statement. "When we add up the amount of dust in the Geminid stream, it outweighs other streams by factors of 5 to 500."

This month when Earth passes through the Geminid debris stream it will produce as many as 120 meteors per hour over dark-sky sites.

Bundle up, go outside and savor the mystery.

more

The only "meteor shower" that I got to see last night/this morning was a snow storm. :(

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Most meteor showers come from comets, which spew ample meteoroids for a night of shooting stars. The Geminids are different. Their source is not a comet but a strange rocky object named 3200 Phaethon that sheds very little dusty debris ? not nearly enough to explain the Geminids.

That certainly is strange.

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