The IAC will broadcast from La Palma and Tenerife the most intense meteor shower of the Geminids

The Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics (IAC) will broadcast from the observatories of La Palma and Tenerife the most intense meteor shower of the Geminids, which will occur on the nights of December 13 and 14, the IAC reported this Friday.

The IAC explains that, for more than 10 years, the Geminids have been characterized as the most intense meteor shower of the year, exceeding 100 meteors per hour, followed by the Perseids and the Quadrantids.

However, this year on the night of December 13 to 14, the Moon will be 72% illuminated, which will make it difficult to observe the faintest meteors.

The IAC will broadcast this meteor shower on the sky-live.tv channel, where from 10:30 p.m., Canary time, on December 13, it will offer images from the Teide (Tenerife) and Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma) observatories.

This year Geminids have been observed since November 19 and can be seen until December 24, and its maximum activity is expected at 1:00 p.m. on December 14 and the nights of December 12 to 13 and December 13 to 14.

This shower, one of the most attractive for many researchers, was first observed in 1862.

The IAC points out that the meteors seem to be born - they have their radiant - in the constellation of Gemini (the Twins), which are near the well-known constellation of Orion.

To make sure you see as many Geminids as possible, it is best to be in a dark place - free from light pollution produced by cities - and with clear horizons.

It is advisable to wait, at least, until midnight and fix your gaze on an area of the sky, where it will remain, at least, for a few minutes to be able to "detect" a Geminid, and it is recommended to lie on the ground and wear warm clothes. "And most importantly: arm yourself with patience," emphasizes the IAC.

The Geminids are a shower that can be observed from both hemispheres and, in addition, has the characteristic that the meteors are slower than those of other star showers, such as the Perseids.

Although from the northern hemisphere the activity will be greater than from the south - because the radiant will be higher above the horizon - from the southern skies there will also be intense activity during the night.

The so-called "shooting stars" are actually small particles of dust of different sizes (between fractions of millimeters up to centimeters in diameter) that comets - or asteroids, as in this shower - leave along their orbits around the Sun, due to the "thawing" produced by solar heat.

The resulting cloud of particles (called meteoroids) is dispersed by the comet's orbit and is crossed each year by the Earth in its orbit around our star.

During this encounter, the meteoroids heat up, mainly due to friction, when entering the Earth's atmosphere at high speed, partially or completely vaporizing, creating the well-known luminous traces or "shooting stars" that receive the scientific name of meteors.

Those larger meteors that survive the atmospheric friction could impact the Earth's surface becoming meteorites.

Normally, star showers originate from the melting of comets, but this is not the case with the Geminids. A small celestial body - the asteroid (3200) Phaethon - is the presumed progenitor of the Geminids since 1983.

The team led by Dave Jewitt (UCLA), helped by NASA's STEREO probes - our eyes on the Sun to "hunt" asteroids and comets in their approach to the star - realized, in 2010, that Phaethon was experiencing an increase in intensity in its brightness.

It was something new that they called "rocky comet" A hybrid between asteroid and comet? In short, it is a curious asteroid that gets so close to the Sun - it does so every 1.4 years, similarly to how a comet would - that the heat emitted by our star "burns" the dust residues that cover the rocky surface and thus forms a kind of "gravel tail".

The forecasts for this year's Geminids are good with activity rates similar to other years. This year the best time to observe the Geminids will be the first hours of the night as the Moon will be low on the eastern horizon.

In a dark place you can detect around one geminid every 3-4 minutes, and the slowness of these meteors facilitates their vision, says Miquel Serra-Ricart, researcher at the IAC. EFE