METEOR ALERT!! ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED AND PROLIFIC METEOR SHOWERS OF THE YEAR - THE GEMINID METEOR SHOWER PEAKS THIS SATURDAY NIGHT DECEMBER 13TH – 14TH 2025!!! - EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE GEMINID METEOR SHOWER!!! 💖🌒🌠☄️✨
A QUICK SUMMARY OF THE GEMINID METEOR SHOWER
- Parent Body: Asteroid 3200 Phaethon
- Radiant Constellation: Gemini
- Shower activity between: 3rd – 20th December
- Peak activity: 13th-14th December
- Peak meteor count: on average up to 150 meteors per hour in perfect conditions!
- Best time/date to observe: early morning of the 14th of December, from 00:00 – 03:00
The Geminid meteor shower is known by many as the King of the meteor showers and is one of the most anticipated and prolific of the annual meteor showers. The Geminids are active between the 3rd and 20th of December. This year the peak night for the Geminids is the night of the 13th of December into the morning of the 14th of December, with its peak activity occurring during the morning of the 14th.
This year will be a very good year to observe the Geminid meteor shower due to the peak occurring only 5 days before the new Moon. This means that during the Geminids peak, the Moon will only be a 28% illuminated waning crescent and will not be in the sky until 2:23am on the 14th. Therefore the Moon won’t be creating any natural light pollution early in the night and won’t be too bright once it has risen. And so conditions (cloud conditions aside) will be great for viewing meteors in the night sky.
All in all, it’s a great time to try spot meteors and well worth spending an hour or two out stargazing and meteor watching on these beautiful dark nights.
If you would like more detailed information on the Geminid meteor shower and meteors in general, including what meteors are, where they come from, what you need to know about to maximise your chances of viewing meteors, plus our personal recommendations and tips for when and where to look, please read on…
THE GEMINID METEOR SHOWER
The Geminid Meteor Shower is so named because the radiant point from which its meteors appear to radiate from is located within the constellation of Gemini – the twins.
The Geminid meteor shower occurs every December when the planet Earth passes through a cloud of debris left behind by asteroid 3200 Phaethon. This year the shower is active between the 3rd to the 20th of December and peaks in the morning of the 14th of December.
This annual autumnal/winter meteor shower is considered by many as one of the most reliable, fruitful and beautiful meteor showers of the year. The Geminids are known for lighting up the skies with bright and fast multicoloured meteors that can leave long-lingering, ionised gas trails for multiple seconds. Geminid meteors are often white in colour, with some yellow and a few green, red and blue. At its peak, the shower is projected to produce up to 150 meteors an hour under perfect, clear, dark skies.
The Geminids are known for producing “fireballs”, which are exceptionally bright meteors (brighter than Venus) that blaze across the night sky amazing all those that witness them. These fireballs are so bright that they can even be visible in light-polluted areas such as cities.
Geminid meteors are known to travel across the sky fairly slowly compared to meteors from other meteor showers. However, in reality they are still travelling at an incredible speed as they enter Earth’s atmosphere. In fact, Geminid meteors are typically travelling at a velocity of 22 miles per second and they enter the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of roughly 79,000 miles per hour, Wow! 🙀☄️
WHERE DO METEORS COME FROM? / PARENT BODY – ASTEROID 3200 PHAETHON
Most of the major meteor showers originate from comet debris. However, together with the Quadrantids, the Geminids and Quadrantids are the only major meteor showers known to not originate from comets.
The Geminid meteor shower is caused by the trail of debris left by the asteroid 3200 Phaethon. When we watch the Geminids streak across the sky, what we are actually witnessing is the fragments from asteroid 3200 Phaethon’s trail as it passes by the Earth.
Asteroid 3200 Phaethon is a small asteroid measuring just over 3 miles in diameter and takes 1.4 years (523.6 days) to orbit the Sun.
3200 Phaethon was discovered on Oct. 11, 1983, by Simon F. Green and John K. Davies using data from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). 3200 Phaethon was the first asteroid discovered using a spacecraft as opposed to a ground based telescope.
As well as being the first asteroid discovered with a spacecraft, Phaethon was groundbreaking in another way. After studying its orbit, scientists were surprised to find that 3200 was linked to the Geminid meteor shower. Up until this moment scientists believed that only comets were responsible for creating meteor showers, and so 3200 Phaethon was the first asteroid found to be linked to a meteor shower.
Scientists are not sure how to define Phaethon, it is thought Phaethon could be a "dead comet" or a new kind of object that certain scientists call a "rock-comet” or a comet-asteroid hybrid. Normal asteroid orbits are circular, but Phaethon follows a highly elliptical comet-like orbit around the Sun. When Phaethon passes by the Sun it does not develop a cometary tail, and its spectra is that of a rocky asteroid.
Phaethon is named after the figure from Greek mythology that drove the Sun-God Helios' chariot, as it travels very close by to the Sun.
WHAT CAUSES THE LIGHT FROM METEORS?
As a comet or asteroid travels through space, it leaves a trail of dust and debris behind it. When Earth intersects these trails, we slam into the dust and debris in their wake. The debris then enters the Earth’s atmosphere at incredibly high speed, generating immense amounts of frictional energy that is released in the form of intense heat and light. Meteors tend to vary from the size of a sand grain to about as big as a pea. The bigger the piece of debris, the bigger and brighter the meteor.
When a meteoroid particle strikes the upper atmosphere at high speed, it heats up to around 1,650°C and starts to glow. The meteoroid also compresses and heats the air in front of it, exciting atoms like oxygen which in turn radiate light. Together, the two processes produce the bright, needle-like flashes known as meteors or "shooting stars."
Occasionally, a meteoroid may be large enough to survive its fiery journey through our atmosphere, landing somewhere on Earth. When a meteoroid manages to land on our planet, it becomes known as a meteorite.
METEOR COLOURS ❤️💙💜🧡💛☄️
When meteoroids burn up in our atmosphere, they can sometimes create beautifully colourful trails behind them. The colours that meteors display are partly caused by the presence of traces of elements such as sodium, iron and calcium, the same elements that are used to make fireworks colourful.
These elements become ionised as they travel through Earth’s atmosphere and emit a beautiful range of different coloured meteor trails as their particles burn up in the atmosphere. The colours that are emitted depend on the elements being excited.
Here are the colours associated with different elements found in meteors: 👇
🟠 Orange-yellow — sodium;
🟡 Yellow — iron;
🔵 Blue-green — magnesium;
🟣 Violet — calcium;
🔴 Red — atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen.
The speed at which the meteor enters the Earth’s atmosphere can also affect the colour. The faster a meteor moves, the more intense it’s colour may appear.
FIREBALL METEORS
On rare occasions, when a meteoroid is large enough, it is possible to view extremely bright meteors which are known as “Fireballs”. A meteor is called a fireball when it reaches a magnitude (brightness) equal to or brighter than that of the planet Venus. Venus is about -4 in magnitude, a meteor must be brighter than this to be known as a fireball. These fireballs are so bright that they can easily be seen in heavily light-polluted areas such as cities.
On very rare occasions, it is possible to view meteors that explode and separate into several pieces in the sky. We have been treated to sights of a couple of these at the public stargazing events that we run in Dalby Forest. These explosive meteors are known as “bolides” and can outshine the bright full moon. They are an incredible sight to witness.
WHAT FACTORS TO CONSIDER TO MAKE SURE YOU CAN SEE METEORS
In order to maximise your chances of viewing meteors from a meteor shower it helps to consider a few things.
The main thing you need to consider when looking for meteors from a meteor shower is the date/s when the Earth travels it’s furthest into the trail of debris left by the parent comet or asteroid. Around this period of time there will be a higher number of meteoroids entering the Earth’s atmosphere, this is the peak of the meteor shower.
The next most important thing to consider for many showers is the time that the radiant for the meteor shower will be high in the sky. The higher the radiant is in your visible sky, the higher your chances of viewing meteors will be. However, sometimes the radiant for a shower may not be at its highest point in the sky when the skies are dark.
You must also take the brightness of the skies into account along with the radiant’s location in order to maximise your chances of viewing meteors.
There are also other factors such as the Earth weather, the conditions of your viewing location and the Moon’s position and phase that will affect how easy it is to view meteors and need to be considered.
WHEN IS THE PEAK / THE BEST NIGHT TO WATCH?
The exact peak for the Geminids (when the Earth travels furthest into the trail of asteroid 3200 Phaethon) will be in the early morning of the 14th of December.
Technically speaking, the Geminids will be most active in the early morning of the 14th around 7:40 GMT, however the skies will be very bright at this time due to the morning twilight, so not that great for observing meteors! Plus there are other factors to take into account (please see below) that will affect the amount of visible meteors, which may mean that the best time for viewing this year’s Geminids will be earlier in the morning of the 14th.
WHERE TO LOOK / THE RADIANT
To help you know where is best to look for meteors it helps to understand a little about meteor shower radiants.
Meteors from a specific meteor shower will appear to originate from a particular area of the sky which is known as the “radiant”.
The radiant for the Geminid meteor shower can be located in the constellation of Gemini the twins.
The constellation of Gemini can be found left of the famous constellation Orion, and in between the zodiacal constellations of Taurus and Cancer.
Leo can be identified most easily by the two bright stars Pollux and Castor. The brightest star of Gemini – Pollux, is also the upper left star of the large asterism known as the “Winter Circle” or “Winter Hexagon”.
This year we also have the super bright planet Jupiter to help locate Gemini. Jupiter looks like a super bright star-like point of light and can be found nearby to the bright stars Pollux and Castor.
More specifically, during the shower’s peak, the radiant for the Geminids is located in the area of sky just above the star Castor.
You don’t really need to know exactly where the meteors radiate from because meteors can appear anywhere in the sky. However, knowing where the radiant is may help you increase your chances of viewing meteors if you follow this top tip:
Top Tip! - If you can locate the radiant, try looking at a dark part of the sky around 45 degrees away from the radiant to maximise your chances of viewing meteors. This area of the sky tends to be the easiest area to spot meteors. Meteors seen closer to the radiant will appear shorter / leave shorter trails compared to others further away from the radiant.
Cool Fact! - You can tell if a meteor belongs to a specific shower by tracing a line backwards from the direction it appeared to travel in across the sky. If this line leads you close to a meteor shower’s radiant location, you can safely bet that meteor belonged to that specific meteor shower.
WHAT TIME TO LOOK / RADIANT CONTINUED
Although it can help knowing the exact location of the radiant, the main thing you need to know about a meteor shower radiant is that it has risen above the horizon. Once the radiant has risen in the sky there will be a higher chance of seeing meteors, and the higher the radiant has risen, the more meteors will be visible.
With many meteor showers (the Moon aside) the best time to head out and watch meteor showers is usually on the peak night between midnight and dawn, when the radiant is (usually) high in the sky and the skies are darkest. Don’t worry if you can’t head out this late, there should still be plenty of meteors about earlier in the night.
On the night of the 13th of December, the radiant for the Geminid meteor shower will rise above the North-Eastern horizon at roughly 15:27 GMT, only 10 minutes before sunset. From here the radiant will climb higher in the sky travelling towards the South where it will reach its highest point in the sky, 68 degrees high at roughly 02:00 on the morning of the 14th.
Thankfully at this time the Moon will still be below the horizon, and even though technically speaking the peak of the shower is later in the morning, the Moon will begin to brighten the skies a little after rising at around 2:30am. This means around around 2am when the radiant is at its highest may be the best time to observe this year’s Geminids.
On the nights either side of the 13th, the radiant will rise and reach its highest in the sky towards the South at approximately the same times as above.
If you head out early in the night, you might also be treated to something called an “Earth grazer” meteor (long, slow, colourful meteors that skim across the edge of our atmosphere).
WHERE TO VIEW FROM / VIEWING LOCATION
The location that you do your stargazing from can make a big difference to the number of stars and in this case shooting stars that are possible to see in the night sky. The less light there is around your viewing location, the more your eyes will adapt to the darkness, the darker the skies will be and the more of the fainter meteors from a shower will be visible.
Ideally for meteor showers and generally enjoying the night sky, you want to find a safe dark location, with clear views of the sky, and as far away from sources of light such as street lights as possible.
DARK ADAPTATION / NIGHT VISION
When out meteor watching, in order to view as many meteors as possible it can help to allow your eyes become adapted to seeing faint objects in the sky.
Try not to look at sources of light such as your mobile phone or the Moon for around 15 minutes or so, this will allow your eyes become dark adapted. After around 15-30 minutes of letting your eyes adapt to the dark, the pupils of your eyes will dilate to their maximum aperture and the receptors in your eyes that are responsible for low light vision will become fully activated. This will allow your eyes to gather more light and more fainter night sky objects will be easier to see.
If you need to use a torch to light your way, we recommend using a torch that emits only red light. Red light has much less of an effect on your night vision compared to white light.
If you want to use your phone, use it on its lowest brightness and you can always cover the screen with a red film to minimise its effect on your night vision. Star map/planetarium apps such as Stellarium often have a night mode that displays only in red light which can also help you keep your night vision.
Another tip to help you see more on nights with a bright moon or a light nearby to your viewing location is to keep the moon or source of light out of sight. If you have a large tree or building nearby to your location, try blocking the moon or any sources of light from your line of sight with the tree/building. This can help stop a bright moon or lights from ruining your dark adapted night vision.
THE MOON / DARK SKIES
Sometimes the glow of the Moon can interfere with a meteor shower and spoil meteor shower views by lighting up the night sky and washing out the fainter meteors. When the Moon is bright it leaves only the brightest of meteors visible.
Fortunately for this year’s peak night of the Geminid meteor shower, the Moon will not be around for most of the night, rising at 02:23 and will only be 28% illuminated. This means that the skies will be free from natural light pollution for most of the night and also when the radiant reaches its highest point in the sky. However, shortly after the Moon has risen it will cause a little natural light pollution and will start to slightly affect the amount of meteors that will be visible.
ASTRO DOGS RECOMMENDATIONS ON HOW BEST TO SEE THE GEMINIDS
Following the advice above will help you maximise your chances of seeing meteors. But if you want our personal recommendations for this year’s Geminids:
- Considering the timing of the peak, the radiants location, and the Moon conditions, the best time/date to observe the Geminids may be the early morning of the 14th of December from midnight up until around 3am.
- However, don’t worry if you can’t stay out this late there should still be lots of meteors around earlier in the night.
- If you can, try find a nice safe location away from the light pollution of towns/cities with clear views of most of the sky and with no lights nearby. Also, another tip is try to find a location with as little light pollution as possible towards the South stretching to the South-East and South-West because of our last couple of tips:
- Meteors can be seen anywhere in the sky, but you are more likely to see meteors around 45 degrees away from the radiant which is located in the constellation of Gemini.
- Following the above tip, if you can locate the constellation Taurus and the star cluster known as the Seven Sisters, this may be a good location to focus on. Another good location to focus on may be the constellation of Leo and the asterism known as the “Sickle” or backwards question mark.
We hope that these tips will help you catch some shooting stars! 😊
OTHER CELESTIAL TREATS TO LOOK OUT FOR
There are also quite a few other celestial treats to look out for during the night at this point in time:
- There are several other meteor showers active around this time too! As an extra meteor watching challenge try reverse-tracing the trajectories of the meteors you observe and see if you can recognise any that aren’t part of the Orionid meteor shower!
- The amazing ringed planet Saturn is well placed for observation in the early evening. Saturn can be found in the constellation of Aquarius the water bearer - just below the great square of Pegasus and the asterism known as the “Circlet”.
- Look out for the bright planet Jupiter in the constellation of Gemini.
- The glowing open star cluster the Pleiades (aka the Seven Sisters) can be seen in the constellation of Taurus.
- The glow from our closest galactic neighbour – the Andromeda Galaxy can be seen by the naked eye in the constellation of Andromeda.
These are just a few of the amazing sights that can be seen in our night skies at the moment.
WHAT ELSE IS IN THE NIGHT SKY THROUGHOUT DECEMBER?
If you would like to know more about the rest of the celestial treats that can be seen in the skies throughout this month, please head to our YouTube channel to watch our Night Sky Guide video for December 2025.
GENERAL STARGAZING/METEOR SHOWER TIPS
• You don’t need a telescope or any special equipment to view meteors, just your eyes and a bit of patience.
• If you do own binoculars or a telescope, you may want to take a closer look at some of the amazing celestial treats that are currently visible in our night skies. Saturn with its majestic ring system, Jupiter with its great weather bands and great red spot, the Pleiades with its faint nebulous glow, and the amazing Andromeda galaxy all are spectacular to view with binoculars or a telescope.
• Find a safe, dark location with clear unobstructed views and as far away from streetlights as possible. The darker your location, the more meteors you will see. However, don’t worry too much if you can’t get somewhere dark, you should still see the brighter meteors.
• Allow your eyes to adjust to the darkness and you will see more meteors. Our eyes require time to adjust to low levels of light. Try not to look at bright lights (such as a phone) for around 15-30 minutes and this will allow you to see many more meteors. If you do require to use a torch, use one which emits red light as this interferes with your night vision much less than white light.
• Be mindful of other stargazers when using a torch, you don’t want to ruin other people’s meteor shower experience!
• You don’t need to know where the radiant for a meteor shower is to be able to view meteors but if you do, it can help. Once you’ve located the radiant in the sky, looking halfway between the horizon and the zenith (directly upwards), and 45 degrees from the radiant will improve your chances of viewing meteors (however, pay attention to the whole sky as they can appear anywhere). The closer to the radiant you look, the shorter the meteors will appear. The further away from the radiant you look, the longer they will appear.
• You can tell if a meteor belongs to a specific shower by tracing a line backwards from the direction it appeared to travel in across the sky. If this line leads you to the radiant’s location, you can tell that meteor belonged to that specific meteor shower.
• You might want to take a blanket to lay on or a chair to recline in, so your neck doesn’t get strained whilst looking up.
• If you head out, wrap up well! It can get quite chilly on a night, and if you are not prepared, you may end up being too cold to stay out and see any meteors. Bring a blanket to cover yourself in and a flask with a warm drink for extra comfort. ❄️🧤🧣
• You may wish to gather some of your friends and family to share this magical occasion too. You could always host a meteor watching party with music and drinks (but no bright lights!).
GOOD LUCK AND CLEAR SKIES
The peak of the Geminids always puts on a great show and with the Moon out of the way for most of the night, we are very much looking forward to this year’s Geminids.
We have already seen quite a few Geminids in the nights leading up to the peak and we can’t wait to see if we witness more amazing fireballs during the rest of the meteor shower and we hope you all get to see some too!
As ever, interactions or shares are a great help, and we are eternally grateful for all your support.
Good luck everyone and clear skies!!! 💖
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