Starstruck society: Geminid meteor shower lit up two hemispheres - with more to come

OPINION:

Celestial fireworks, nature’s light show, a dazzling performance - those are just a few of the global press reviews of the glittering Geminid meteor shower which peaked on Saturday evening and lasted through early Sunday. Astronomers weighed in on the phenomenon for hours on end, engaging the starstruck public through social media and live webcasts. And it’s still going on.

The Geminids will remain visible for up to two weeks - so don’t stop looking up when night falls.  And what a show. They travel at 22 miles a second and ignite into brilliance about 24 miles up - with more of them visible the farther one strays from the city lights. NASA is always a good resource on the grand universe - including tales of ancient Martian lakes, spectacular images from the Hubble Space Telescope, “ghost lights” from dormant galaxies and live video from astronauts on a lofty perch. Find them here

The Geminids themselves are hunks of debris from an object called 3200 Phaethon - once considered a 3-mile wide asteroid, now reclassified as “an extinct comet,” the space agency says. It’s just the skeleton; this is a comet that has lost it outer casing of ice; some astronomers call it a rock comet, not a bad name for a band, actually.

SLOOH - a convivial community observatory - offered live shots of incoming meteors and the whizzing sounds they make - find the organization here. And about those sounds. Meteorites Australia, a research group down under, catalogs the intriguing possibilities: “Occasionally when a meteorite is witnessed to find its way to Earth, it will present a very impressive visual show as it burns through the atmosphere. Even less common though, are the occasions when witnesses are able to actually hear audible sounds associated with the falling meteor. These have been described in many various ways such as: whistling, popping booming, thunderous, whizzing, whirling, whirring, crackling, drumming, rumbling, humming, roaring and more.”