Geminid meteor shower peaks tonight

By Chaturanga Samarawickrama   

The annual occurrence of the Geminid Meteor shower will peak tonight as experienced yesterday, Colombo University Astronomy and Space Science Unit said.   

The unit said this meteor shower occurred on the same period between December 4 and 17 every year with peaks during December 13-14, he said.   

However, due to the absence of moonlight till early in the morning, more meteors could be seen, member of the unit said.   

“If the sky is clear and dark with no city light illumination, people may be able to see about 120 meteors per hour (That is about one or two meteors per minute). 

They said no binoculars or telescopes were needed to see those meteors. “This meteor shower is spectacular because of its multi-coloured display with tracks of lights seen in several colours such as white, yellow, green, blue and red. These shooting stars appeared to be coming from the direction of the constellation Gemini and therefore named Geminid,” it was said.   “The Geminid meteor shower has a broad peak, so observers should be able to see the meteors even on 14th and 15th nights with somewhat less in numbers,” Prof. Jayaratne added.     

• If the sky is clear and dark with no city light illumination, people may be able to see about 120 meteors per hour