Asteroid-made meteor shower to be visible Friday

If you missed Taylor Swift’s appearances in Vancouver, there are still plenty more opportunities to catch glittery, cosmic events before the end of the year.

The Geminids — among the few major meteor showers to come from asteroids — will peak on Dec. 13. But Dr. Rosanna Tilbrook with the MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver says British Columbians should be able to see some meteors “whenever it’s dark across the weekend.”

“We expect that you could see to 115 meteors per hour on Friday night. But you know that depends on how dark the skies are and where Gemini is in the sky, but it’s a good opportunity to see a lot of shooting stars,” said Tilbrook

In Vancouver, Friday’s forecast shows clouds and periods of rain, which Tilbrook says will make spotting meteors challenging. She says meteors will burn up in the atmosphere higher up than clouds, and those hoping to experience the full effect may have to travel.

“So being in the middle of Vancouver, we have a lot of light pollution. And the other problem that we have at the minute is that the moon is almost full, which really makes the sky nice and bright. So for the best chance of seeing those lovely, sharp meteor trails, you want to go kind of a little bit outside of the city,” she said.

Tilbrook recommends visiting Spanish Banks Beach, Porteau Cove, or McDonald Park in Abbotsford — a local “dark sky reserve.”

Meanwhile, she says Jupiter will be visible in the sky, at its closest approach to Earth. 

“It’s actually going to be pretty close to the constellation of Gemini, where the meteors will be originating from,” Tilbrook explained. 

“So you’ll be able to see that it will just look like a really bright star in the sky. But, if you get a pair of binoculars, you might even be able to make out some of the moons that orbit Jupiter, so they’ll look like between one and four many little stars that are around the big star of Jupiter.”

Multiple meteor showers occur annually and you don’t need special equipment to see them.

Most meteor showers originate from the debris of comets, but a few — including the Geminids — result from the debris of asteroids. The Geminids come from the sun-orbiting asteroid 3200 Phaethon.

When rocks from space enter Earth’s atmosphere, the resistance from the air makes them very hot. This causes the air to glow around them and briefly leaves a fiery tail behind them — the end of a “shooting star.”

The glowing pockets of air around fast-moving space rocks, ranging from the size of a dust particle to a boulder, may be visible in the night sky.

The rocky nature of asteroid debris makes the Geminids especially likely to produce fireballs, said NASA’s William Cooke. 

“Those are pretty tough rocks that can penetrate deep into the atmosphere,” he said.

Visibility of the Geminids will last until Dec. 21. The next meteor shower, the Ursids, will peak on Dec. 22.

—With files from Srushti Gangdev