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11th Dec 2018

The biggest meteor shower of 2018 is coming to Ireland this week and you won’t want to miss it

Conor Heneghan

shooting star ireland

If the weather plays ball, this will be a spectacular sight.

If you’ve glanced skyward in Ireland in the last few weeks, chances are all you’ve been greeted with is a blanket of cloud and probably a few raindrops in the face to go with it.

Clear skies, unfortunately, have been something of a rarity, but if stargazing is your thing, keep your fingers crossed for clear conditions later this week because the skies are going to light up with the biggest meteor shower of the year.

An annual event, the meteor shower known as ‘The Geminids’ will be visible all over the globe at various stages of this week and according to Astronomy Ireland, Thursday 13 December will be the best night to witness it.

According to NASA, The Geminids come about “when Earth passes through a massive trail of dusty debris shed by a weird, rocky object named 3200 Phaethon”.

“The dust and grit burn up when they run into Earth’s atmosphere in a flurry of ‘shooting stars’.”

Mention of the term ‘shooting stars’ was enough for us, but if you want to read more on the science behind The Geminids, you can do so on the NASA website here.

Up to 50 times more shooting stars than a normal night are expected in what David Moore, editor of Astronomy Ireland, has previously called a “wonderful natural celestial fireworks display”.

As they have done in the past, Astronomy Ireland are urging members of the public to count how many meteors they can see in the sky every 15 minutes (if possible, start on the hour or quarter past the hour), note it down and to contact them with the details.

More information on how to do so can be found on the Astronomy Ireland website here.

According to Met Éireann, after a wet and breezy start to Thursday, broken cloud and largely dry weather will follow at night and overnight into Friday morning, so there is a decent chance that Irish stargazers won’t be disappointed come Thursday.

Fingers crossed.

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