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image credit & copyright: Wang Jin




where are all of these meteors coming from ?

in terms of direction on the sky, the pointed answer is the constellation of Gemini

that is why the major meteor shower in december is known as the Geminids -- because shower meteors all appear to come from a radiant toward Gemini

three dimensionally, however, sand-sized debris expelled from the unusual asteroid 3200 Phaethon follows a well-defined orbit about our Sun, and the part of the orbit that approaches Earth is superposed in front of the constellation of Gemini

therefore, when Earth crosses this orbit, the radiant point of falling debris appears in Gemini


featured here, a composite of many images taken during the 2020 Geminids meteor shower shows over 200 bright meteors that streaked through the sky during the night december 14













































in apod.nasa.gov/apod