Shooting stars to rain down during annual Geminids meteor shower on Thursday, Friday

The Geminids, a meteor shower near the constellation Gemini, will arrive on Thursday and Friday. [ASIM PATEL, JOONGANG PHOTO]

The Geminids, a meteor shower near the constellation Gemini, will arrive on Thursday and Friday.

The meteor shower will be visible by eye nationwide, Chungju Goguryo Astronomical Observatory in Chungju, North Chungcheong, said Sunday.

The meteor shower will hit peak visibility on Friday at 4 a.m.

A meteor shower is a celestial event in which more than 10 shooting stars are observed.

The Geminids can sparkle the night by pouring more than hundreds of shooting stars per hour.

Meteor showers become less visible under moonlight.

However, Korea will have darker skies for both nights as the moon will go down early in the evening on both days.

Korea also has the best environment to observe the Geminids as the meteor shower will peak at dawn.

According to the International Meteor Organization, this year’s Geminids will rain down less than 150 meteors. The ones visible by eye will be less than the speculated number.

The Geminids are one of the major meteor showers, along with the Quadrantids in January and the Perseids in August.

The Geminids are from the rock comet Phaethon 3200, which takes around 1.4 years to orbit around the Sun.

Meteor showers take place when the Earth's gravity pulls the orbiting debris detached from comets and asteroids, producing heat with a dash of light through atmospheric friction.

The Geminids appear when the Earth passes through the debris from the rock comet Phaethon 3200.

BY CHOI JONG-KWON, LEE SOO-JUNG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]