After the meteor shower’s peak last night, photos of Geminids have been posted from all over the globe.
Lucky sky-savers from Russia, Spain and Dubai as well as the UK, were able to spot the meteor shower. Some even saw up to 50 shooting star per hour.
NASA dubs the Geminids the ‘best meteor shower of the year,’ due to the fact the tiny space rocks are so fast and plentiful as they burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Geminid Meteor Shower occurs every year from December 4 to December 17 and peak overnight on Tuesday December 14.
It’s the result of Earth traversing a trail made by 3200 Plaethon (a comet long gone), which was previously thought to have been an asteroids.
Geminids were named after their point of origin, which is in the constellation Gemini. They produce fireballs with green colours.
A 128-photo overlay shows the circumpolar star trails above San Telmo Tower in Ubiarco (Cantabria), Spain. This was taken during the Gemenids meteor Shower, 14/12/2021.
The Geminids meteor Shower as seen from Vladivostok, Russia’s Pacific Coast. A closeup of a Russky Island piano art object can be seen
Bill Cooke from NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office describes the Geminids, a meteorological shower that he will endure cold December nights in order to witness, as the best because of their spectacular display.
Stargazers from all over the globe ventured out to the freezing cold in the wee hours of the morning.
The idea was to photograph one of the hundreds of bits of rock or dust that rises in the air and capture it.
These birds fly 40 times faster than bullets, at approximately 78,000 miles per anhour. It creates a stunning spectacle.
On social media, users shared images from the event. One person saw 100 meteors in total over the UK within the hour they spent outdoors.
A bright waxing gibbous moon was visible during peak time for viewing, which meant it wasn’t at its best until the moon set after about 03:00 GMT.
The reason for this is because the shower’s radiant point – the point in our sky from which the meteors seem to radiate – was highest at that time.
The higher Gemini the Twins rises in the sky, the more likely it was for observers to spot Geminid meteors.
As they travel through the sky, meteors emit bright colors, including yellow, red, blue and green. The brightest of them leave glowing trails.
Steve Brown is an amateur astronomer who shared the images below. These photos were taken from North Yorkshire. The top image shows the sunrise with a bright Moon. (Bottom) This second shot gives you a better view (bottom) of the shooting star.
It is anticipated that the shower will last until December 17th, but shooting stars frequency will slowly decrease following tonight.
These meteors, which are tiny pieces of interplanetary material, radiate near Castor in Gemini.
Because of friction with the upper atmosphere, the incoming particles heat up and cause the air to glow brightly.
These streaks are known as shooting stars because they emit light in a continuous pattern.
View of Novik Bay, Russky Island in the Geminids meteor Shower
Meteors that are associated with showers have identical orbits and appear to all come from the same spot in the sky. This is known as the radiant.
While the Geminid meteor Shower was initially reported in 1862 by scientists, it was only 1983 that researchers discovered 3200 Phaethon as its source.
Phaethon can be considered either an extinct comet or an asteroids. The three-mile wide Phaethon travels around Earth once every 1.4 year and loses some of its dust when it reaches Earth’s parent star.
It can be as small as a grain of sand or as large and compacted to the size of a pea.
NASA stated in a blog post that although the conditions for the Geminid meteor Shower aren’t ideal this year, they still expect it to be spectacular in our night skies.
The shower that the Geminids created in the 19th century was very weak. It attracted little attention when it first occurred. The shower was barely noticed and it never became a big event.
Geminids are unlike other meteor showers that originate from comets. They originate from an asteroids: 3200 Phaethon.
Because it is so close to sunlight, the asteroid was named for Helios the Son ‘Phaethon.
Legend says that the young demigod was forced to prove his relationship to Helios when he tried to show him. Helios was believed to be the one who pulled the sun across the sky.
Phaethon took his father’s horse chariot to show his divine prowess. However, Phaethon was not able to manage the horses and they ran wild, carrying the sun along with them.
In the chaos that followed, Earth almost fell apart, burning vast quantities of vegetation and creating the great deserts in Africa.