Step outside after dark this week and you can watch chunks of an asteroid burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. Behold, the Geminid meteor shower, which is renowned as the year’s best. At peak Geminids, you could catch a shooting star every minute, and this year the moon won't be bright enough to foul the show. That main action arrives just past 9 p.m. local time Wednesday and lasts until dawn.
“The Geminids are rich in fireballs and bright meteors so that makes them very good to observe,” says Bill Cooke, who runs NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office.
And it’s not only amateurs excited about this year’s show. Just a day after the Geminids peak, the asteroid behind the meteor shower, 3200 Phaethon, will pass closer to the planet than it has since 1974 — before it was discovered.
Astronomers are ready; they’re hoping to get the best images ever of its surface and finally settle an old debate: How did an asteroid — instead of a comet — cause a meteor shower.
