(some pictures of Geminid meteor shower)
This December is going to be a a great month for amateur astronomers, and anyone else who wants to take a moment to appreciate the natural wonders of the night sky. The Geminid meteor shower returns every year, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t consider letting the kids stay up a late on December 13th (or get them up early, the showers will peak at 6AM in the Eastern time zone of the United States, at which point it will be low in the Western sky) to catch sight of one of the most mysterious astrological phenomena out there.
“The Geminids are my favorite, because they defy explanation,” NASA astronomer Bill Cooke, a meteor expert at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama told Space.com.
Meteor showers are the result of the Earth passing through a stream of space rocks, which light up the atmosphere with “shooting stars.” Comets are the source of most of these fields, but the Geminids are different. Their source is a mysterious rocky object called 3200 Phaethon, which doesn’t shed nearly enough derbies to explain the size of the Geminid meteor showers.
Even if you miss the Geminid’s this year, don’t skip the total lunar eclipse that will be visible from North America on the night of December 20th this year. Our continent won’t get another this good until April 2014.
For the Western Hemisphere, the eclipse will “officially” begin on Dec. 21 at 12:29 a.m. EST (9:29 p.m. PST on Dec. 20) as the moon begins to enter Earth’s outer, or penumbra shadow. The eclipse should last about 73 minutes.
References :
http://www.kidglue.com/2010/12/09/geminid-meteor-shower-and-lunar-eclipse-2010-the-best-show-on-earth/
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