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The final meteor shower of 2023 is expected to send shooting stars streaking across the sky over the festive period.
The Ursid meteor shower will peak Thursday night into early Friday morning, according to the American Meteor Society. Night owls braving the cold can see about 5 to 10 meteors per hour, the association said.
This year, the Ursid meteor shower will peak on the same day as the winter solstice, the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. According to EarthSky, on the night of the summer solstice, at 10:27 pm Eastern Time, the sun will be at its southernmost position.
Robert Lunsford, the association’s fireball reporting coordinator, said the best time to view the meteors, weather permitting, is from 3 a.m. local time on Friday to dawn, after the moon sets. According to the American Meteor Society, the moon will be 74 percent full on its peak night, and its bright light will interfere with meteor observations earlier in the evening, Lunsford said.
Lunsford said the meteor shower will be visible to skywatchers in the northern hemisphere, and the farther north the observers go, the better because the radiant constellation will be higher in the sky earlier in the night for observers in Alaska or northern Canada. high position.
Unlike the Geminid meteor shower, which has a high rate of meteor sightings in the days before and after its peak, the Ursids have a relatively short period of maximum activity. Lunsford said rates of five to 10 meteors per hour would only be visible during the peak night and early morning hours. He said the Ursid meteor shower will produce about one meteor per hour in the days before and after its peak. The Ursid meteor shower begins in mid-December and will last until December 24.
This shower will sometimes produce 25 to 30 showers per hour. We don’t want this. But you never know, Lunsford said. He added that if you miss the Geminid meteor shower, you can expect to see some meteor activity before the end of the year.
No special equipment is required to view the meteor shower. NASA does not recommend using telescopes or binoculars because of their small field of view as meteors fill the sky.
The Ursid meteor shower is an unusual annual meteor shower whose radiant (the point from which the meteors appear to originate) is not a zodiac sign. Instead, the Ursid meteor shower appears to originate in the constellation Ursa Minor, also known as the Little Dipper.
By recording the timing, size and other characteristics of meteor sightings, researchers can gather more information about regions of space within Earth’s orbital path, such as the density of debris clouds and the timing of planets passing through them, Lunsford said. .
“If enough of us do this (record the timing of meteor sightings), it could map out the cosmic dust out there and help us explain what creates them,” Lunsford said. Where and what will happen next year. .
Because the Ursid meteor shower is not as common as the Geminid meteor shower, Ursid data may be more valuable to researchers, Lunsford said. Even amateur astronomers can contribute to data collection by reporting their meteor sightings to the American Meteor Society through its website.
The Ursid meteor shower is the last annual celestial event this year, but the first meteor shower of 2024, the Distance Quadrant meteor shower, will peak on the morning of January 4.
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