SRINAGAR: Experts at Astronomical Observatory Hanle (Ladakh) captured the spectacular Geminid Meteor Showers that perennially take place in December every year. They used two cameras set up for two nights to capture the amazing meteor showers.
“Collected hundred more meteors but as I was processing this image my laptop needed to be restarted several times as it stopped working and also the photoshop crashed several times and hence I had to leave the best of the showers,” Dorje Angchuk, the engineer at Indian Institute of Astrophysics run Indian Astronomical Observatory, Hanle, wrote. “Around 42 images were stitched for the foreground and the file was 2 GB big making life difficult for this old laptop.”
The annual Geminid meteor shower is renowned as one of the most reliable and vibrant meteor displays and it illuminates the night sky between November 19 and December 24.
Unlike typical meteor showers, the Geminids originate from the asteroid 3200 Phaethon. This strange blue rock, behaving like a comet, produces bright and fast meteors, making the Geminid meteor shower a favourite among celestial enthusiasts. The shower, nearly two centuries old, has grown stronger over the years due to the gravitational influence of Jupiter pulling the stream of particles closer to Earth.
Gemini, the constellation from which the meteors appear to emanate, is easily identifiable in the night sky, situated northeast of Orion, between Taurus and Cancer. However, it’s crucial not to focus solely on Gemini, as Geminid meteors can be visible across the entire night sky.
The Geminids are associated with the asteroid 3200 Phaethon, a comet-like object with a highly elliptical orbit around the sun. When Earth passes through the debris left by Phaethon, the resulting “asteroid crumbs” heat up upon entering the atmosphere, creating brilliant bursts of light in the form of meteors.
