December 17, 2023
The constellations may be old, but the person celebrating beneath them is gloriously new by cosmic standards.
Geminids over China's Nianhu Lake
Birthday · December 17, 2023
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APOD published December 17, 2023. Credit: Hongyang Luo. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Where are all of these meteors coming from? In terms of direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of Gemini. That is why the major meteor shower in December is known as the Geminids -- because shower meteors all appear to come from a radiant toward Gemini. Three dimensionally, however, sand-sized debris expelled from the unusual asteroid 3200 Phaethon follows a well-defined orbit about our Sun, and the part of the orbit that approaches Earth is superposed in front of the constellation of Gemini. Therefore, when Earth crosses this orbit, the radiant point of falling debris appears in Gemini. Featured here is a composite of many images taken a few days ago through dark skies from Nianhu Lake in China. Over 100 bright meteor streaks from the Geminids meteor shower are visible. APOD Year in Review (2023): RJN's Night Sky Network Lecture
Image credit: Hongyang Luo