in being multi-coloured<\/a> \u2013 mainly white, some yellow and a few green, red and blue.<\/p>\n\u201cThese colours are partly caused by the presence of traces of metals like sodium and calcium, the same effect that is used to make fireworks colourful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Geminids meteor showers typically produce up as many as 120 and 160 meteors per hour at the peak.<\/p>\n
WHEN IS THE GEMINIDS METEOR SHOWER 2025? HOW TO SEE IT<\/p>\n
The Geminids meteor shower is expected to run from December 4 right through to December 20.<\/p>\n
That means tonight is the last night that you\u2019ll be able to see the Geminids.<\/p>\n
The peak was on December 14, which is when the shower was most active.<\/p>\n
However, tonight is also the New Moon for December 2025, which means the sky won\u2019t be illuminated by our lunar neighbour.<\/p>\n
So that gives you a much better chance of seeing a meteor compared to if there was a full Moon.<\/p>\n
In fact, it gives you a better chance of seeing anything in the sky, because your view of the heavens is much darker.<\/p>\n
This image shows the Geminid meteor shower in the Kubuqi Desert of Inner Mongolia, China in 2020Credit: Getty<\/p>\n
So even if you don\u2019t catch a meteor, you should get a great view of the stars, and maybe some planets or satellites too.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no perfect place to look at the sky, as meteors can appear anywhere overhead.<\/p>\n
But if you trace them back to their origin, they should all appear to radiate from the constellation of Gemini. <\/p>\n
The bad news is that your evening of stargazing depends on the weather and general visibility.<\/p>\n
This is an image of 3200 Phaethon, which is responsible for the Geminids meteor showerCredit: Wikipedia<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tWhat’s the difference between an asteroid, meteor and comet?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Asteroid: An asteroid is a small rocky body that orbits the Sun. Most are found in the asteroid belt (between Mars and Jupiter) but they can be found anywhere (including in a path that can impact Earth)
\nMeteoroid: When two asteroids hit each other, the small chunks that break off are called meteoroids
\nMeteor: If a meteoroid enters the Earth\u2019s atmosphere, it begins to vapourise and then becomes a meteor. On Earth, it\u2019ll look like a streak of light in the sky, because the rock is burning up
\nMeteorite: If a meteoroid doesn\u2019t vapourise completely and survives the trip through Earth\u2019s atmosphere, it can land on the Earth. At that point, it becomes a meteorite
\nComet: Like asteroids, a comet orbits the Sun. However rather than being made mostly of rock, a comet contains lots of ice and gas, which can result in amazing tails forming behind them (thanks to the ice and dust vapourising)<\/p>\n
If it\u2019s a cloudy night where you are, or you\u2019re staring up from a city with lots of light pollution, then you\u2019ll struggle to see much.<\/p>\n
For the best chance, get out into the countryside, and give your eyes a bit of time to adjust to the dark. That means you shouldn\u2019t stare at your smartphone!<\/p>\n
BONUS METEOR SHOWER<\/p>\n
Although the Geminid shower is the final major meteor shower of the year, it\u2019s not the last shower of 2025.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a smaller \u2013 although very reliable \u2013 bonus meteor shower called the Ursids.<\/p>\n
This image of a Geminid is from the Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture in Japan as seen in December 2013 \u2013 with Jupiter visible in the far rightCredit: Alamy<\/p>\n
It usually runs from December 13 to 26, with a peak at December 22.<\/p>\n
And as the Moon was a New Moon only just a few days ago, you should get a good view of the Ursids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TONIGHT is your last real chance to spy a blazing fireball from the 2025 Geminid meteor shower. It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392,13301,99466],"class_list":{"0":"post-195352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space","13":"tag-space-and-astronomy","14":"tag-weekend-content"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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