Tonight the Geminid meteor shower peaks. My wife and I were out last night and saw loads, about one big fat shooting star a minute. Don't miss the year's best meteor shower! It's because the Earth passes through the sandy exhaust trail of a comet. Tomorrow night will be good as well.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
There's a good reason for it, I promise! Allow me to explain. You see, every so often, a comet zooms in from the Kuiper Belt. As it approaches the Sun, it heats up, displaying a spectacular tail.
What is this "tail" actually? It's tiny, tiny fragments of ice and rock that make up the comet. You…
"April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain." -T. S. Eliot
Of course you all know the refrain, "April showers bring May flowers," but there's one April shower that brings fireballs instead: the Lyrids!
Image…
"That's why I enjoy taking myself out of my own element, my own comfort zone, and hurling myself out into the unknown. Because it's during those scary moments, those unsure steps taken, that I am able to see that I'm like a comet hitting a new atmosphere: suddenly I illuminate magnificently and…
On Aardvarchaeology, Martin Rundkvist tells us that the Geminid meteor shower is peaking tonight, so if you've got any wishes on the back burner, now's your chance to make them. Of course these shooting "stars" are really bits of extinct comet 3200 Phaethon's "sandy exhaust trail" burning up in…
I also went out last night and saw some! It is my first time to see those and I was so amazed! I hope I can see a whole lot tonight.
That would be great - let's just hope it stops snowing and clears up...
Dammit, Cambridge, stop raining a minute!
The Geminids are a great meteor storm to end the year...amazing seeing so many different colours, too!