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Bright streaks of light are set to light up the sky, heralding the first celestial spectacle of the year.
The Quadrantid meteor shower will peak in the early hours of Friday, January 3, with at least 30 to 60 meteors in the morning, putting on a spectacular show throughout the night. This year’s Quadrantids will be unobstructed by moonlight and provide a better viewing experience for one of the most famous meteor showers to grace our skies.
To fully enjoy the Quadrantids this year, the meteor shower is best seen from the Northern Hemisphere, although it will still be visible all over the sky. EarthSky. A meteor shower should be conducted in a poorly lit area, preferably away from city lights. You should be prepared for a long night as it starts to peak around 2am and lasts until morning.
Last year, sky watchers caught some interference from the Moon, which was 51% full on the night the Quadrantids peaked. This year, however, the meteor shower will coincide with the growing Moon, which does not interfere with the appearance of streaked lights.
The Quadrantids are annual rainfall first discovered in 1825. It is active from late December to mid-January. The meteor shower has a narrow peak window of a few hours each year due to the fine particle flow and the angle at which Earth’s flow intersects. NASA.
Still, the meteor shower puts on quite a show during these few hours. Quadrantids are known for their bright fireball meteors, which produce larger bursts of light and color from larger particles of material.
While most meteor showers come from comets, the Quadrantids come from an asteroid. The space rock known as asteroid 2003 EH1 orbits the Sun once every five and a half years. It is a relatively small asteroid, measuring about two miles (three kilometers) across, and may be a dead comet or comet rock (an asteroid with a similar orbit to a comet).
According to NASA, the Quadrantids, or the visible point in the sky where the meteor shower comes from, is an obsolete constellation called Quadrans Muralis. French astronomer Jerome Lalande created the constellation in 1795, but it was removed from the list of recognized constellations by the International Astronomical Union in 1922.
The first meteor shower of the year kicks off a series of astronomical events for sky-lovers to enjoy, including the four planets Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter, all of which can be seen within the first few hours after sunset throughout January.
