CALCUTTA: A spectacular meteor shower will captivate sky watchers in the city and elsewhere on the night of December 13 and first hours December 14. Geminid meteor shower, which reaches its peak this year on the night of December 13, is the most intense meteor shower of the year, Director of the MP Birla Planetarium and known astrophysicist Debiprasad Duari it said in a statement Saturday.
He said that the Geminid meteor shower can be seen from anywhere in India if the sky conditions are favorable.
“While it is expected around December 13-14 at night, you can probably see some meteors in the early evening on December 14 as well,” Duari said.
Meteorites are brilliant streaks of dazzling light that are often seen in the night sky and are often called “shooting stars.”
Actually, when a rocky object, which can be as small as a speck of dust, enters the Earth’s atmosphere with tremendous speed, due to the excitation of air molecules and friction, a bright beam of light is produced, explained.
During a certain period of the year, one can see not one, but numerous meteors originating from a particular direction in the sky.
They are called meteor showers and, in general, they are caused by the passage of the earth through the debris of dust left by the different comets as they approach the Sun.
In general, comets are mainly made up of ice and dust, and when they get close to the sun, the ice they contain melts, leaving a trail of dust along its path.
As the earth passes through this dusty region on its annual journey around the sun, dust and rocky substances enter the earth’s atmosphere, sometimes at speeds of between 30 and 60 km per second, and produce a shower of rays of light, called a meteor shower.
Since they appear to be coming from one direction in the sky, practice is to identify the constellation from which they appear to radiate and the meteor shower It is named after the constellation.
Among the various meteor showers, one of the most spectacular is the Geminid, which occurs every year around the second week of December.
Also, at the top of the meteor, as predicted, in the middle of the night from December 13 to 14, around 1 to 2 a.m. M., When the constellation of Gemini will be over your heads in Calcutta, it will provide the opportunity to observe the “heavenly sky”. fireworks, “Duari said.
This year, according to predictions, it may be possible to see 150 meteors per hour since the sky is dark and clear.
One should not be alarmed at seeing this “celestial phenomenon, since these meteors will not cause harm to anything on Earth,” said Duari.