The Quadrantid Meteor Shower,
lasts from 28 December to 7 January. For my time zone, Central, and most of the United States the peak for this year
is predicted to be during the evening of 3 January. Unfortunately the area where the meteors radiate from, the radiant,
does not rise until after midnight local time in the United States. Click here to see a graphic showing the area
hosting the radiant for the Quadrantids. However the Moon is at new phase so there will be no light from the Moon to
brighten the skies, and this is a typically good meteor shower with average hourly numbers ranging up to 60 or so depending on dark
skies of course. So it may be worth the time to go outside before the Sun rises and look eastward to see some of these meteors.
The Quadrantids Meteor Shower, as do other meteor showers, gets its name from the region of the sky,
or the constellation that the meteors radiate outward from. This name comes from an older and no longer used name for the
stars in this region of the sky, Quadrans Muralis. However the radiant is very close to the constellation Bootes the Herdsman,
and also to another meteor shower radiant, the Bootids, a minor meteor shower occuring during June.
Most Meteor showers, except
the Geminids, owe their existence to a comet. The Quadrantids Meteors originated from
Comet 2003 EH, a comet that is believed to have no ice left but is essentially the roccky
core of the comet. However not all meteor showers have been connected with a particular source comet. This
connection was actually a major discovery that lead to a better understanding of the
relationship between meteors and comets. The idea that meteors 'fell out of the sky' was
not really considered until 1866 when Italian Astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli matched
the orbit of the Perseid Meteor Stream with that of Comet Swift-Tuttle. Based on this
Schiaparelli also calculated an orbit for the Leonid Meteor Stream. That same year other
astronomers matched his calculations with the orbit of the recently discovered Periodic
Comet 1866I. Subsequent observations and calculations have allowed for many of the meteor
showers to be matched with a source comet.
Read more about the Quadrantid Meteor Shower.
){kind=link}