The Quadrantids, one of the most unusual major meteor showers, is set to peak between January 3 and 4. This particular meteor shower is known for its bright fireball meteors and is among the best annual meteor showers worldwide, according to NASA. It is believed to have originated from an asteroid and was first observed 500 years ago by Japanese, Chinese, and Korean astronomers who suspected it originated from the comet C/1490 Y1.
The meteor shower appears to radiate from the extinct constellation Quadrans Muralis, presently part of the Boötes constellation, and is not far from the Big Dipper. However, due to its position in the sky, it is often impossible to see in the Southern Hemisphere, with a chance of spotting it up to 51 degrees south latitude. The best countries to spot the display are those with high northern latitudes, such as Norway, Sweden, Canada, and Finland.
A complete guide to meteor showers is available for those who miss the Quadrantids. A meteor shower happens when Earth passes through the debris stream occupying the orbit of a comet, resulting in several meteors flashing across the sky from approximately the same point. Meteors, often called shooting stars, emanate from a single point in the sky known as the shower radiant due to perspective.
The typical meteor is a particle the size of a grain of sand that vaporizes in the Earth’s atmosphere, producing anything bigger than a grape. Fireballs are often accompanied by a persistent afterglow known as a meteor train, which is a column of ionized gas slowly fading from view as it loses energy.
A meteor is a meteoroid that burns up as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere, creating a “shooting star,” while meteoroids that reach the Earth’s surface without disintegrating are called meteorites. Meteorites are mostly rocks broken off asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and can be stony, iron, or a combination of the two.
NASA indicates that about 1,000 to more than 10,000 tons of material from meteors falls on Earth each day, mainly dust-like grains posing no threat to Earth. There have only been two recorded instances of an injury caused by a meteorite.
Although the Lyrid meteor shower is not set to occur until 2023, stargazers will witness up to 18 meteors per hour during its peak. Meteors in the Lyrid shower travel through the atmosphere at approximately 107,000 mph and explode about 55 miles above the Earth’s atmosphere, casting shadows for a split second before leaving smokey debris trails that linger for minutes behind. The shower is visible in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
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