During the height of the annual Geminid meteor shower on Monday night, stargazers in the UAE may expect to witness roughly 120 meteors per hour dart across the night sky. Every year from roughly December 4 to 16, the Geminids peak during the night of December 13 and into the morning of December 14. This is the ‘peak’ of the shower when the most meteors fall each hour. Except for Antarctica, which receives 24 hours of sunshine every day during this time of year, the shower will be seen across the world.
The shower gets its name from the constellation Gemini because the meteors appear to come from it in the sky. Meteors should be visible over the whole sky, however, the shower’s radiant will appear 58 degrees above the north-eastern horizon around midnight from the UAE. This implies that inhabitants may be able to witness up to 120 meteors each hour since the radiant will be high in the sky, increasing the likelihood of spotting meteors.
