The Night Sky will be a site to behold tonight and tomorrow, as The Geminids Meteor shower Will be hitting its peak.
Tonight and tomorrow the meteors will be very visible in the night sky, with the most activity expected to be around midnight this evening.
Astronomer Scott Young with the Manitoba Museum notes that with the clear skies in the forecast, dauphin is in a great spot to watch this meteor shower.
"Late Wednesday night, the location you'll look in the sky is the darkest part of the sky. If you can, get outside of the city and away from the city lights. This really is worth the drive out of town."
It was long thought that the object responsible for this shower, named Phaethon, was an asteroid shedding debris into the atmosphere,but Young says that modern knowledge has changed what we know about this annual event.
"We actually think it used to be a comet because there's this trail of debris behind it. Maybe what happened is that this comet has gone around the sun so many times that all the ice and the shiny stuff has burnt off and so it doesn't grow a tail anymore, but it has all this dust in its orbit.
Generally, this shower appears to come from the Gemini constellation which should be very visible on the eastern horizon after sunset.
so pull up a chair and keep your eyes peeled. At its peak, this event could have as many as 120 meteors per hour to see.
