This year's first Quadrantid meteor shower: when does it peak
Kyiv • UNN
The Quadrantid meteor shower will peak on January 3-4, with up to 120 meteors per hour, best observed from the northern hemisphere.
The first Quadrantid meteor shower of 2024 will peak this week - January 3-4, according to EarthSky, UNN reports.
Details
According to Live Science , there can be up to 120 shooting stars per hour in the night sky.
The radiant point of the Quadrantid meteor shower, as noted, is far in the north of the sky, so it is best seen from the northern hemisphere of the Earth. From mid-northern latitudes, the radiant point of the Quadrantid meteor shower rises above the horizon after midnight and is highest in the sky before dawn.
According to the American Meteor Society, this meteor shower has the potential to be the most powerful in 2024, but with such a short peak of only six hours, the shower may culminate during the day.
According to EarthSky, the predicted peak will occur on January 4 12:53 UTC (14:53 Kyiv time).
Addendum
According to a 2017 article in Icarus magazine, the Quadrantid meteor shower reportedly lasts from mid-November to mid-January each year.
The Quadrantid shower is one of the four major meteor showers each year with a sharp peak (the other three are the Lyrids, Leonids, and Ursids).
