'Geminid meteor shower': Grand show to peak with 150 meteors per hour tonight

Hyderabad: Gear up for an incredible show of meteors in the sky on Wednesday.

The Geminid Meteor Shower 2022, which has been active since December 4, is likely to peak tonight.

As per the International Meteor Organization (IMO), this meteor shower is expected to peak after 6:30 pm on December 14 with a maximum of 150 meteors per hour to be visible from clear dark skies.

Telescopes are not required to see the meteor showers. People have to wait a little more till 9 pm so that the constellation of Gemini rises above the eastern horizon.

This visual treat will be visible till December 17.

What are Geminid Meteor Showers?

A meteor is a shooting star or space dust or debris. The dust hits the earth's atmosphere and burns into a blaze of light. When a greater number of meteors are visible in one part of the sky due to a parent body, then it's referred to as a meteor shower.

Geminids are one of the most popular annual meteor showers observed across the world annually. While most meteor showers come from comets, Geminids have their origin in an asteroid named 3200 Phaethon (the parent body of the Geminid meteor shower), which was first discovered on October 11, 1983. When the

Earth passes through the dusty trail left behind by the meteor 3200 Phaethon, some of the meteoroids left by the meteor burn up in our planet's upper atmosphere, appearing to us as the Geminid meteor shower.

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Geminids travel at 78,000 mph speed.