WASHINGTON – Every December, the Geminids meteor shower can be seen around the world.
This year, though, a few conditions may make it extra special.
The U.S. space agency, NASA, is predicting stargazers across the globe will be able to see as many as 150 meteors per hour, or about two per minute, early Monday morning, the peak time for the Geminids this year.
The meteor showers also are occurring during a new moon phase, which means a moonless night, making it easier to see meteors as they pass through the sky.
A photo of the moon before dawn, Dec. 11, 2020, just two days before a moonless night and the biggest meteor shower of the Year. (Photo: Diaa Bekheet)
Scientists first began tracking the Geminids in the 1800s. Since then, they say the rate of meteors seen per hour on Earth has increased.
“The Geminids are produced by a stream of debris from this asteroid that we run into every year at this time, and they’ve been slowly increasing in intensity,” Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, told VOA.
“Over time, the Geminid meteor shower has increased in intensity,” he said, adding that 50 years ago, “the Geminids were 15 or 16 meteors per hour.” Now, he said, the hourly rate has increased almost 10 times in recent years.
Geminid Meteor Shower Starts Thursday
Shower, which NASA calls the most intense of the year, will peak December 13-14 and last through the 16th
In addition to the spectacular show offered by the Geminids meteor shower, experts have noticed an increased interest in stargazing this year as the coronavirus pandemic has pushed more people outdoors.
“People are at home, and so they’re more conscious of things going on in the sky,” David Dundee, an astronomer at the Tellus Science Museum in Georgia, told VOA.
“And the nice thing about meteor showers is that you don’t need any special equipment. You don’t need a telescope or binoculars, you just need a clear dark sky away from city lights and something comfortable to sit or lie down on and look up,” Dundee said.
Scientists advise stargazers to lie flat on their backs somewhere without much tree cover or light pollution and allow about 45 minutes for their eyes to completely adjust to the dark.
A challenge for the modern stargazers will be to avoid looking at their cellphones, Cooke said.
“You don’t want to be looking at your cellphone screens, because that will ruin your night vision. So please don’t go out and view the Geminids and still text while you’re doing it, because that’ll greatly cut down the number of meteors you will see,” he said.
What people see when they watch a meteor shower, or see shooting stars, is actually a series of small explosions in the sky.
Quadrantid Meteor Shower Peaks Thursday Night
While the shower is as intense as the Perseid and Geminid showers, it only lasts a few hours
The Geminids, which is how they are known because they appear to emerge from the Gemini constellation, are pieces of an asteroid known as 3200 Phaethon. Every year in December, the Earth passes through the debris – ice and rock — from the asteroid, which, upon contacting the earth’s atmosphere, burn up and leave a streak across the sky.
For scientists, an exciting prospect from this natural phenomenon is the possibility, albeit slim, of access to material from space if a meteor were to fall to the ground as a meteorite.
“Think about that, if you can find that meteorite, you have a sample of this asteroid, 3200 Phaethon, without having to go there, without having to send the spacecraft there. It’s kind of like a sample return mission that comes to you,” NASA’s Cooke said.
Cooke warned, however, that the likelihood of finding a meteorite is very slim. More often than not, stargazers will think they have found one while in reality they are just looking at an average rock, he said.
“When you see a meteorite, a shooting star, when you see a shooting star in the sky, you think it’s landed over the next hill or just down the road. When in truth, it’s hundreds of miles away,” Cooke said, noting that the illusion leads people to think a strange rock near where they think they saw a shooting star may be a meteorite.
Despite the unlikely chance of finding a meteorite, the Geminid shower should be a beautiful sight, particularly after midnight in the first hours of Monday morning.
Dundee, who he fell in love with astronomy in his 10th-grade physics class, said, “One of my favorite quotes [is] from [a] 17th-century French astronomer named Camille Flammarion. … And he said, ‘Astronomy is useful because it’s beautiful.’”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
