Geminids Meteor Shower: 'Up All Night' With NASA!

Janet Anderson, 256-544-6162

Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.

Janet.L.Anderson@nasa.gov

The 2010 Geminid meteor shower has been a lively meteor shower with great views in the skies over Earth. Anytime between Dec. 12-16 is a valid window for Geminid-watching, but the night of Dec. 13-14 was the anticipated peak. On Monday, Dec. 13, meteor experts from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center answered your questions via afternoon and "up all night" Web chats.Geminids are pieces of debris from an object called 3200 Phaethon. Long thought to be an asteroid, Phaethon is now classified as an extinct comet. Basically it is the rocky skeleton of a comet that lost its ice after too many close encounters with the sun. Earth runs into a stream of debris from 3200 Phaethon every year in mid-December, causing meteors to fly from the constellation Gemini. When the Geminids first appeared in the late 19th century, shortly before the U.S. Civil War, the shower was weak and attracted little attention. There was no hint that it would ever become a major display.