Hundreds of green-glowing meteors will grace Denver skies this week as the Earth passes through a field of space debris.

The annual Geminids meteor shower is one of the best times to see shooting stars. But if you want to see the best show, you need to get out of town. Thursday should be the best night for viewing, astronomers said.

“Denver is very light polluted so you have to get somewhere where there’s not a lot of background light,” said Jennifer Hoffman, an astronomy professor at the University of Denver.

For those who don’t want to drive into the boonies at midnight, a park with few lights and wide views of the sky can also be a good option, she said.

Meteor showers are best seen with the naked eye, she said. Star gazers should also try to avoid looking at their phones because it takes at least 30 minutes for eyes to readjust to the dark.

The shower is expected to peak Thursday, though meteors will also be visible for a few days on either side, Hoffman said.

NASA recommended waiting until the moon sets at 10:30 p.m. to watch and said 2 a.m. is the best time to view. Viewers in suburban areas should see between 30 and 40 meteors an hour and people in dark, remote places could see up to 100.

Last year during the meteor shower, cameras at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science recorded a huge meteor that blazed across the sky for several seconds and emitted a bright flash before disappearing.

Most meteor showers are caused when comets move into the solar system but the Geminids are caused by Earth passing through a trail of debris from a “weird, rocky object” called 3200 Phaethon, according to NASA. The debris burns up as it collides with Earth’s atmosphere, which creates the appearance of shooting stars.

Scientists aren’t quite sure what Phaethon is. Some say it’s an asteroid, others believe it is an extinct comet, according to NASA.

The Geminids meteor shower is especially cool, Hoffman said, because it gives viewers a sense of where the Earth physically is in the universe — it puts us at a precise place in the void.