The meteor shower Geminid activity will peak on Sunday and the best time for observation will be during the morning of that day, when a meteor cross the sky every two minutes, said today the Institute of Astrophysics de Canarias (IAC).
The IAC astronomer Miquel Serra told Efe that will not be a “storm” of stars, but it may be similar to the Geminid shower last year, which was “spectacular”.
During Sunday morning the moon is waning and it should not be a problem to watch a lot of meteors, some bright even though their rates are lower than the Perseids of summer.
Last year, remember the IAC, the maximum expected for the morning of December 14, as in this occasion, and the “window” observation was about two hours since the start of the Moon.
Calls shooting stars are small dust particles of various sizes, some smaller than grains of sand left by the comet along their orbits around the sun.
The current resulting particles (called meteoroids) due to “thaw” produced by the solar heat is dispersed by the comet’s orbit and is crossed each year by Earth in its orbit around the Sun. , shown in the statement of the IAC.
During the meeting, the dust particles disintegrate when entering at high speed in the atmosphere, creating the known light strokes receiving the scientific name of meteors.
The origin of the Geminids was a mystery until the solar probes Stereo (NASA) confirmed the emergence of a small tail on the asteroid 3200 Phaethon (at closest approach to the Sun or perihelion), only object moving in the same orbit as the cloud causing Geminid meteoroids.
From that time, 3200 Phaethon is known as “rock comet” which is an asteroid that comes close to the Sun thus enabling to form a tail surface breakage due to overheating.
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