Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 12, 1993 TAG: 9312120101
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: E-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
DATELINE: FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
The Geminids meteor shower rarely disappoints, astronomers say. They call it the meteor shower of the year.
"It should really be the best shower of the year. You couldn't ask for better timing," Fort Lauderdale astronomer Arnold Pearlstein said. "It's going to be peaking in the early evening; there's going to be a new moon."
Public television astronomer Jack Horkheimer, who has been watching meteor showers since the 1960s, said, "This is my favorite of the year. I call it the lazy man's shower because you don't have to drag yourself out of bed to see it."
You can start to search for shooting stars as soon as it gets dark, he said.
Horkheimer said he just spreads a blanket in his yard, puts Christmas carols on the stereo and gazes up for hours. Of course, it helps if you get away from city lights.
Look just after sunset today, Monday and Tuesday. The peak time is 6 p.m. Monday, Pearlstein and Horkheimer said.
However, Davie, Fla., astronomer Dave Menke said he thinks the best viewing will be about 5 a.m. Monday and Tuesday because the Earth will be turning into the meteor stream.
You may be able to see up to 50 shooting stars an hour, astronomers say.
About 65 percent of the shooting stars will be white and 26 percent will be yellow, with the rest blue, red and green, Horkheimer said.
This meteor shower has a different origin than others.
"It's the comet corpse," said Horkheimer, director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium. "The ghost of Christmas past - we can call it Marley."
Unlike other meteor showers, which come from the debris of live comets, the Geminids come from the refuse of something called 32-Phaeton.
The core of 32-Phaeton is nothing but a 2-mile-wide piece of ex-comet, Horkheimer said.
The ex-comet has the shortest orbit of any known comet, too, orbiting the sun every 18 months, Horkheimer said.
Like other heavenly bodies that generate meteor showers, the ex-comet comes by every year at the same time. But not for too much longer; it'll be gone in 100 years or so.
The Geminids are moving away from the Earth's orbit and are dying out, Horkheimer said.
by CNB