Santa Cruz de Tenerife. (EFE) .- The Rain Star of Geminids will peak activity Sunday next 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 Institut d’Astrophysique de Canarias (IAC).
The IAC astronomer Miquel Serra told Efe that will not be a “storm” of stars, but it may be similar to Geminids rain last year, which was “spectacular.”
During the early hours of Sunday the Moon is waning and it should not be a problem to watch a lot of meteors, some bright although their rates are lower than those of the summer Perseids.
Last year, remember the IAC, the maximum expected for the morning of December 14, as in this occasion, and the ” window “remark was about two hours from 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 to along their orbits around the sun. The stream 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 Sun, shown in the statement of 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), single object moving in the same orbit as the cloud of meteoroids cause the Geminids.
From that point, Phaethon 3200 is known as “rock comet” which is an asteroid that comes close Sun thus enabling to form a tail surface breakage due to overheating.
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