Greetings skywatchers! The of the year is bringing some great night sky events. Let’s have a look.
Possibly the biggest meteor shower this year will be the Geminid shower which is peaking this week. We are in luck this year as the next few days of peak activity will be free of significant lunar interference; our crescent Moon has yet to reach first quarter and will set early in the evening.
The cloud cover over much of the country has been a problem this week for meteor-hunters, but keep checking your local sky as you should be able to see meteors any night through the weekend and maybe into next week. I myself saw a bright meteor streaking across the sky last night.
The Geminids are slower than most showers and are known for producing prominent fireballs (large meteors that survive to the lower atmosphere). There have been at least two fireballs sighted along the eastern seaboard in the past week.
Why are the Geminids a little different? It comes down to the source of the shower, a near-Earth asteroid known as 3200 Phaethon rather than a cometary debris trail.
The name Phaethon comes from Greek mythology: the son of Helios who drove his father’s sun-chariot too close to Earth and suffered the wrath of Zeus. We remember Phaethon today with this asteroid which passes extremely close to the Sun in its orbit, about 12 million miles, a distance inside the orbit of Mercury!
You can look anywhere in the sky to watch for meteors; this shower is called the Geminids because it appears to originate in the constellation of Gemini with its two famous stars, Castor and Pollux, or the Twins. Gemini appears in the sky just to the left of Orion and Taurus. You should be able to easily spot Orion early in the evening and you can use the star chart above to locate Gemini.
You can easily tell the Twins apart: bright Pollux is golden yellow in color and is actually much closer (34 light years) than the fainter Castor (52 light years). What you can’t see with the naked eye is that what we see as the single star Castor is really a system of six stars, grouped into three binaries (a binary consists of two stars circling a common center of mass).
The other major event this month is the arrival of Comet 46P/Wirtanen in our night sky. On the star chart, the comet will be visible just above Taurus when it is at its brightest, on Sunday night. You can use the diagram below to track its progress across the sky. If you can find a fairly dark-sky location you should be able to see the comet without optical aids, but binoculars or a telescope will definitely help.
Updates:
I have had a few people ask about where to see the live video stream of Earth from the space station, here it is:
https://youtu.be/4993sBLAzGA
The latest news about the OSIRIS-REx mission to the asteroid Bennu:
https://www.asteroidmission.org/
The current status of the Mars InSight lander:
https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/
Video of the successful Virgin Galactic VSS Unity flight on Thursday (congratulations!):
https://youtu.be/K2kf1I8yx_4
Have a happy holiday season!
Looking-Glass Tea 
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