This weekend, the annual Geminid meteor shower will once again appear — with shooting stars streaking across the sky.
It will peak Friday and Saturday under a nearly full moon, which will reduce visibility, but bright meteors may still be spotted in the days leading up to the peak, according to NASA.
Considered one of the best meteor showers of the year, up to 120 shooting stars will be able to be seen per hour, AccuWeather said.
Timothy Cermak, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Moon, said if the sky is clear enough, people will be able to see whitish, glowing streaks in Western Pennsylvania.
“If you blink, you might miss it,” he said, saying the meteors won’t behave like comets. “They’re moving very fast.”
The Geminid meteor shower is linked to the constellation Gemini, as meteor showers get their names from where their meteors originate, AccuWeather said.
Often bright and intensely colored, the Geminids are usually the “strongest” meteor shower of the year, according to the American Meteor Society.
Prime viewing
The Geminid meteor shower will reach its peak at 8:35 p.m. on Friday, according to WTAE meteorologist Mike Harvey.
Meteors will be visible throughout the entire night sky — not just in the direction of the Gemini constellation, according to AccuWeather, but due to the nearly full moon, people should look toward the darker areas of the sky to see the shower.
“Many meteors will be lost in the glow of the full moon,” Harvey said. “Meteors are also visible before and after this peak.”
Cermak said the meteor shower will begin at around 9 or 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday night and continue through the overnight hours. It can peak in the middle of the night around 2 a.m.
“The bigger problem might be our weather here,” he said.
Thursday night might be the best time to view the shower, despite it not reaching its peak until the weekend, Cermak said, because it might be cloudy on Friday and Saturday night.
The nearest clear skies on Friday will be toward the East Coast in Pennsylvania, he said.
“If people want to see it, your best chance of seeing it would be to drive east,” Cermak said.
However, by Saturday night, the clouds will have reached the East Coast, he said.
“Looks like we stay cloudy the entire weekend, with rain chances each day,” Cermak said.
He also advised to bundle up amid colder temperatures at night, as Friday morning will be in the single digits to low teens and Saturday morning in the upper teens and low 20s.
“People should definitely take that into consideration … if they’re going to watch them,” Cermak said.
Harvey said people should be patient and give their eyes around 10 to 15 minutes to adjust to the night sky, according to What’s Up In Space.
This year will bring one more meteor shower after the Geminids on the night of Dec. 21 into the morning of Dec. 22, AccuWeather reported.
The Ursids will peak, but it won’t be as impressive because there will only be about 10 meteors per hour, AccuWeather said.