The 12 Days of Solstice – Day 4: The Geminid Meteor Shower Caught on Cloud Camera

Welcome to Gemini’s 12 Days of Solstice! This is a joyous countdown to the longest, or shortest (depending on which hemisphere you live in) day of the year! Visit our blog each day from December 11 – December 22 for Gemini-themed crafts, cartoons, playlists, videos and much, much more.

Today we present two of the Gemini Nort cloud camera views of last night’s meteor shower. The late evening on December 13/early morning of December 14th had the peak of this year Geminid Meteor Shower. The meteor shower gets it name from the fact the ‘shooting stars’ appear to originate from the direction of the Gemini constellation. The Gemini Observatory also get is name from the Gemini constellation, as it is one observatory but with twin telescopes, each placed in a different hemisphere to enable observing the whole night sky.

Both of Gemini Observatory’s telescope sites have cloud cameras  that covers much of the visible horizon so the night crew can be informed about clouds, fog, and the conditions outside the dome. The cloud cameras also caught the Geminid Meter Shower, with many meteors streaking through the cloud cam footage.  The meteor shower happens because the Earth crosses a cloud of comet or asteroid debris, and it creates those bright streaks as the particles burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. It is thought that asteroid Phaethon,  the third largest near-Earth asteroid known,  is the source of debris cloud that feeds the the Geminid meteor shower. How exactly it produces the cloud, is still an open question.