Dubai: A spectacular meteor shower will dazzle the UAE skies this weekend, and is considered to be one of the best this year.
Mohammad Shawkat Odeh, director of the International Astronomy Centre in Abu Dhabi, said that while the west will be able to see the meteor shower on the night of December 13, the most suitable time in the Arab region will be on the nights of December 14-15.
“Meteors are the grains of the earth that enter the atmosphere, melt and evaporate as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere and as a result, we can see it in the form of a light line that move fast across the sky in seconds or a fraction of a second,” said Odeh.
According to his calculations, about 60-120 meteors will fall across the sky, and Odeh assured that they do not pose any kind of threat as they disappear before reaching the surface of our planet.
The Geminid meteor shower takes place every year from about December 4 to 16, peaking on the night of December 14 into the morning of December 15. This is the shower’s peak time when the highest number of meteors fall per hour.
Comet 46P/Wirtanen is the brightest comet of 2018 although it will be too far away to see. Astronomers expect it to be the brightest around December 16, when it will pass closest to Earth, 12 million km away.
The Dubai Astronomy Group is organising an event on December 14 called “Geminids Meteor Shower camp” where people can view and learn more about this meteor shower, other celestial bodies and deep sky objects with telescope and laser marking of stars.
Sky gazers can register the event through www.Q-tickets.com.
