Geminid Meteors, Best Shooting Stars Of 2023, Peak This Week Over MD Skies

MARYLAND — Weather permitting in Maryland, stargazers will be rewarded with what is regarded as the best meteor shower of the year, the Geminids, which fire off at a rate of about 120 shooting stars an hour during the Wednesday night and Thursday morning peak.

This is expected to be a banner year for the Geminids. The moon will be a slim crescent low in the west-southwest sky that sets before nightfall, leaving a dark sky to view the shower known for often yellowish-colored meteors and fireballs.

In most places in the country, warmer-than-normal December temperatures, thanks to a strong El Niño climate pattern, are ideal for overnight meteor watching. The National Weather Service calls for clearn skies overnight Wednesday and early Thursday in Maryland.

The best views of the Geminid meteor shower are around 2 a.m. local time on Thursday when the shower’s radiant point — the constellation Gemini — is at its highest point in the sky. But because Gemini begins to come up near the east-northeast horizon around twilight, you may see a few shooting stars as soon as the sky gets dark Wednesday night, making it a perfect meteor shower to enjoy with the kids, according to NASA.

Early evening skywatchers may catch a rare “Earth grazer” — that is, a slow-moving, long-lasting bright meteor traveling horizontally across the sky.

Around 9 or 10 p.m. local time, the shower noticeably picks up in velocity, according to Space.com. That’s because the higher the radiant point in the sky, the more meteors it produces.

These are top sky-watching spots in Maryland, according to Space Tourism Guide:

• Assateague Island
• Bear Branch Recreation Park
• City of Greenbelt Observatory
• Gaithersburg Observatory Park
• Green Ridge State Forest
• Kent Island

If you can’t make it outside during the peak, don’t despair. You should also be able to see a fair number of shooting stars a few days earlier as the shower builds toward its crescendo.

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Meteors occur when Earth, in its orbit around the Sun, passes through debris left behind by disintegrating comets and space rocks. The Geminid meteors fly as Earth passes through the massive trail of dusty debris left behind by the rocky object named 3200 Phaethon. The dust and grit burn up when they enter Earth’s atmosphere, causing a flurry of meteors.

Phaethon is one of the mysteries of the universe, according to NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke.

“It’s either a near-Earth asteroid or an extinct comet, sometimes called a rock comet,” he wrote in a blog on the agency’s website. “There is another object — an Apollo asteroid named 2005 UD — that is in a dynamically similar orbit to Phaethon, prompting speculation that the two were once part of a larger body that split apart or collided with another asteroid.”

There’s more: “Most shower meteors are shed by comets when their orbits take them into the inner Solar System, but the Geminids may be the debris from this long-ago breakup or collision event. When you consider that the Geminid meteor stream has more mass than any other meteor shower, including the Perseids, whatever happened back then must have been pretty spectacular.”

The first known report of the Geminid meteor shower was in 1833, when it was seen from a riverboat moving slowly on the Mississippi River. The shower produced 10 or 20 an hour back then, but the Geminids have grown in intensity over the centuries as Jupiter’s gravity tugs particles from 3200 Phaethon closer to the Earth.

Here are some tips to get the most out of your nighttime meteor-watching excursion:

• Give your eyes 30 minutes to an hour to adjust to the darkness.
• Lie flat on your back on a thick blanket or hammock, or sit back in a reclining lawn chair, so you can see as much sky as possible. Don’t look directly at Gemini, the shower’s radiant point; you’ll miss some of the amazing trails associated with this wintertime favorite. Instead, look slightly away from the constellation.
• The only thing that makes the Geminid meteor shower take second place to August’s Perseid meteor shower is the late fall chill, so take along some hot drinks and snacks, and prepare to settle in. The Geminids reward patience. They often fly in spurts, but there could be lulls when you see no meteors at all.

If you miss the Geminids, which run through Christmas Eve, there’s one more chance in 2023 to see meteors. The Ursid meteor shower runs from Dec. 17-26 and always peaks around the winter solstice, which is Dec. 21. The peak this year is expected to occur Dec. 23.

The Ursids are fairly low-key, delivering five or 10 meteors an hour, but on rare occasions, they can produce outbursts of 100 or more meteors an hour. The meteors appear to come from the Ursa Minor constellation.

The Quadrantid meteor shower rings in 2024, running from Dec. 26-Jan. 16 and peaking Jan. 3-4.

The shooting star show has the potential to be one of the strongest of the year, but usually falls short because the peak occurs during a short, six-hour window at a time of year when people don’t want to spend a lot of time outside, according to the American Meteor Society.

Quadrantids fly at a rate of about 25 an hour during the peak. They usually lack persistent trails, but are often rich in bright fireballs.