Friday night is peak time for the most powerful meteor shower of the year, the Geminids.

The Geminids have been shown to reliably produce large numbers of meteors per hour in dark skies – up to 120 – and many of them are bright. Additionally, it is the only major meteor shower that can be seen from 9 p.m. instead of just before sunrise can see a significant number of meteors.

This year, as in 2022, a bright moon that will be full on Sunday, December 15th will obscure visibility of fainter Geminids, but 15 brighter meteors per hour should be visible. Unfortunately, the weather forecast for the DC area is not exactly encouraging, with clouds expected. But look around the sky yourself to see how much cloud cover there is.

You don’t need any equipment or know-how to enjoy the show – just find a spot where you can set up a lounge chair or blanket to view the sky. Starting at 9 p.m., look east for the constellation Gemini, after which this meteor shower is named.

This year, the ever-brighter red planet Mars makes finding Gemini a breeze, as Mars will be directly beneath the constellation as it rises. A meteor that is part of the shower can be traced back to Gemini.

Sporadic meteors that are not part of the shower can also be seen at night.

The best place to see the Geminids is somewhere away from lights and obstacles like trees and buildings.

If you’re a city dweller, you can still see the brightest twins as long as you don’t stare into a streetlight or hide between tall buildings.

Viewing the Geminids is worthwhile from the suburbs, provided lights and obstructions are minimized as much as possible. Out in the country, in the mountains or on the beach are the best places for this.

The rain will continue throughout the night until the sky clears before dawn.

The key to watching showering is to stay comfortable, and it’s especially important to stay warm. The Geminids can appear anywhere in the sky, but looking straight up will give you the widest viewing area – this is where a lounge chair or blanket comes in handy.

The Geminids are known to produce spectacular meteors called “Earth grazers.” As described by Sky and Telescope:

“Although Geminid numbers typically peak overnight as radiation rises higher in the sky, given the timing of the maximum and the presence of the Moon, this could be a good year to spend more time observing in the evening hours spend. Weather gods permitting, I hope to be outside between 9 and 11 p.m. local time. During this time, the meteor spread point (radian) increases from about 25° to 50° altitude. An even earlier start, around 6 to 7 p.m., is optimal for spotting Earthgrazers – long, slow-moving meteors that hit the atmosphere at a tangential angle. They stream upward from the northeastern horizon, just as a rocket leaves a launch pad.”

The predicted peak of the 2024 Geminid meteor shower is Friday evening, but you can see Geminids from Thursday, December 12th through Friday, December 20th.

Every year around this time, our planet encounters a debris flow of rock particles created by the asteroid 3200 Phaethon. The Geminids are the only meteor shower caused by an asteroid or what astronomers call a rocky comet – all others are due to cometary debris.

As the Earth moves in its orbit around the Sun, it collides with this rocky debris flow and the particles hit our atmosphere at a speed of 22 miles per second, becoming “shooting stars” or “shooting stars.”

The Geminids are believed to be brighter than other meteor showers because they contain larger and heavier debris than normal comet dust and penetrate deeper into the atmosphere.

I hope we see some bright specimens!

As you observe the sky, look at the four planets that are easy to spot. As darkness falls after sunset, brilliant Venus is in the southwest, Saturn is high in the south, bright Jupiter is in the east just below the waxing crescent Moon, while Mars is rising in the east at 8 p.m

I’ll be telling a story about that pesky moon on Saturday.

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