Geminid meteor shower lights up night sky
Technology
In perfect conditions, viewers can spot dozens of meteors every hour
WASHINGTON (Web Desk) - The Geminids meteor shower, famous for its multi-coloured streaks of light across the night sky, has wowed stargazers across the globe.
Visible around the world, the meteors can be seen with the naked eye as long as the sky isn't too cloudy or affected by light pollution.
In perfect conditions, viewers can spot dozens of meteors every hour.
Nasa calls the Geminids one of the year's "best and most reliable annual meteor showers".
What exactly causes these showers?
We see meteors when the Earth passes through trails of debris from comets or asteroids. As that debris hits our planet's atmosphere, it burns up and creates spectacular streaks of light.
The Geminids are triggered by celestial debris left behind by a rocky asteroid known as 3200 Phaethon.
"Shooting stars actually have nothing to do with stars," according to Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, space scientist and co-host of The Sky at Night. "It's just these tiny bits of debris sort of burning up" she said.
Dr Aderin-Pocock said that because this meteor shower is caused by an asteroid and not a comet, it makes it "quite spectacular because asteroids are rocky" whereas comets are icy.
"Quite a few of these shooting stars will be coloured because of the difference in elements within the particles," she said.
The Royal Observatory in Greenwich says the colours include white, yellow, green, red and blue. The colours are partly caused by the presence of traces of metals like sodium and calcium in the debris.
