This Weekend’s Geminids Meteor Shower Should Be Spectacular

This Weekend’s Geminids Meteor Shower Should Be Spectacular

By Lee Billings edited by Clara Moskowitz

The annual Geminids meteor shower is a favorite celestial sight around the holidays for many. This year’s show is due to peak this weekend with near-ideal viewing conditions for observers in the Northern Hemisphere.

Named for the constellation Gemini from which they appear to radiate, the Geminids—or “Gems” for short—usually offer the best and brightest falling stars for skywatchers to see out of all the major annual meteor showers. And this year’s batch should be no exception, especially because their predicted greatest intensity—late on the night of Saturday, December 13—should happen under relatively dark skies.

The brightness of a full moon can easily obscure most Geminids for observers, but the 2025 Gems will occur when the moon is a waning crescent, which won’t rise until the early-morning hours of Sunday, December 14. Assuming clear skies, these conditions should allow several hours of almost perfect viewing, beginning at 9 or 10 P.M. on Saturday as the Gemini constellation rises in the east, and ending circa 3 or 4 A.M. on Sunday. Running from December 4 through December 17, the Geminids will still be on display for days before and after this peak, albeit with much lower rates of shooting stars.

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For the best chance of seeing a truly spectacular shower—with meteors falling at rates as high as 150 per hour—step outside under a clear, very dark sky sometime between midnight and 2 A.M., when the constellation of Gemini will have reached far above the horizon.

Many smartphone apps can locate Gemini, but as a shortcut simply look to the east-southeast for the eye-catching dot of planet Jupiter, which is now near the constellation as seen from Earth, and settle in for a celestial staring contest. Be sure to bundle up, too, as it’s likely to be quite chilly; a hot drink can help, and warm conversation with a buddy or two will help you pass the time (and monitor more of the sky).

Be on the lookout for bright and colorful shooting stars that gracefully arc overhead—such robust, relatively slow-moving displays are a hallmark of the Gems, which are composed of debris from the six-kilometer-wide asteroid 3200 Phaethon. The shower’s constituents hit Earth’s atmosphere at about 35 km per second—much slower than that of most other annual meteor showers, which instead come from fluffier pieces of cometary debris orbiting the sun at higher speeds.

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