Catch the year's best meteor shower overnight Friday

WASHINGTON -- Yeah, I know it is cold. But if the sky stays clear overnight Friday, we will enjoy the peak time for what I think is the best meteor shower of the year, the Geminids.

I say this because it reliably produces a large number of meteors per hour -- between 100 and 200 -- and and many of them are bright. Plus, the Geminids is the only major meteor shower where you can see a good number of meteors during the early evening hours instead of the hours just before dawn.

The predicted peak of the 2013 Geminid meteor shower is overnight Dec. 13, but you can see Geminids from Dec. 12 through 16. Each year at this time our planet encounters a debris stream of rock particles made by Asteroid 3200 Phaethon. The Geminids is the only meteor shower caused by an asteroid or what astronomers call a rock comet. All others are due to cometary debris.
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