Muscat: The Sultanate of Oman’s sky will experience the downpour of Geminid meteor showers, in twin radiant streaks from Gemini constellation.
The display will peak on Tuesday night and the dawn of Wednesday this week.
Ibrahim Mohammed Al Mahrooqi, Vice-President of the Board of Directors of the Oman Astronomical Society, said in a statement to Oman News Agency: “The year 2022 is not ideal for observing Geminid meteors because the waning humpback moon coincides with its peak activity, which will obliterate most of the faint meteors, but the Geminid are many and bright so there will be a possibility to see some of these meteors.”
He indicated that in 2020, members of the Omani Astronomical Society observed 1,063 meteors over six hours of observing the Geminid meteor showers. Its peak was between 1:00am and 1:59am, when it reached 227 meteors.
He pointed out that the Geminid meteor showers are produced from the wreckage of the asteroid known as “Phaethon”, which was discovered in 1982, unlike the rest of the meteors whose source is comets.
He indicated that the debris of this asteroid enters the earth’s atmosphere every year from December 7 to 17, which causes the phenomenon of meteors that are characterised by their multi-colour.
He explained that at the intersection of the Earth’s orbit directly with those remnants, the latter burns at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of about 35 kilometres per second, at an altitude of approximately 70 to 100 kilometres, in the form of bright meteors, which are relatively slow compared to other meteors, which results in the formation of wonderful long arcs that appear yellow or green or blue, and last for a second or two in the sky.
Regarding the possibility of observing the phenomenon, Al-Mahrooqi says: “The observation should be from a dark location, away from sources of light pollution or an obstacle such as tall trees, and look towards the eastern horizon of the sky’s dome after midnight until the dawn, noting that this is an opportunity for amateurs. It is an opportunity to take beautiful pictures decorated with Geminid meteors and some astronomical bodies that appear in the sky during this period. He explained that this phenomenon is one of the astronomical phenomena that can be seen with the naked eye without the need to use special monitoring devices.
