FOX44 - Burlington / Plattsburgh News, Weather & Sports1.3.12 A Brief Spectacular Show In The Sky Tonight

1.3.12 A Brief Spectacular Show In The Sky Tonight

If you're willing enough to brave the cold weather tonight, you can head outside to view one of the new year's first meteor showers! Astronomers expect the Quadrantids to peak in the early morning hours of Wednesday, January 4th. Weather dependent, this is guaranteed to bring a great show...and as luck would have it, our sky will be mostly clear to partly cloudy, allowing us to check out the show here in the northeast. The cloudiest region will be in parts of Chittenden county with a slight chance of a flurry.

According to spaceweather.com, the Quadrantid meteor shower is one of the year's best, often producing more than 100 meteors per hour from a radiant near the North Star. The peak is brief, typically lasting no more than an hour or so. While the peak time is anticipated for around 2:20am on Wednesday morning, experts suggest you keep an eye out anytime after midnight, through the pre-dawn hours as the shower is not always punctual. Here's where to look...

Again, according to spaceweather.com, the source of the Quadrantid meteor shower was unknown until Dec. 2003 when Peter Jenniskens of the NASA Ames Research Center found evidence that Quadrantid meteoroids come from 2003 EHI, an "asteroid" that is probably a piece of a comet that broke apart some 500 years ago. Earth intersects the orbit of 2003 EH1 at a perpendicular angle, which means we quickly move through any debris. That's why the shower is so brief.