Geminids this Wednesday ‘could be a really dynamite show’ II Geminids meteor shower set to peak Wednesday night II How to watch the Geminid meteor shower on Wednesday

A Geminid meteor streaks between peaks of the Seven Sisters rock formation early December 14, 2010 in the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. The meteor display, known as the Geminid meteor shower because it appears to radiate from the constellation...

WASHINGTON — Attention, stargazers: the orbiting object spewing space dust that creates the Geminid meteor shower will be closer to Earth than it has been in recent memory.

“So, it’s a possibility that this could be a really dynamite show this year,” U.S. Naval Observatory Astronomer Geoff Chester said.

The jury still is out on whether the object named 3200 Phaethon is formerly an asteroid or a comet.

What is known, is that the Geminid meteor shower is expected to produce up to 120 meteors an hour during its peak Wednesday night into Thursday morning. Shooting stars also will be evident on the nights before and after.

“The shower stays active for pretty much the entire month of December in some form or another, but the real peak activity is on that night of the 13th to the morning of the 14th,” Chester said.

In the D.C. metro area, begin to look for the show before about 10 p.m. when the brightest stars in the Gemini constellation will rise above the horizon.

Chester notes that the intensity of the shower has been slowly growing since it first was described in the 1860s.

“It really, I think, is becoming the best of the periodic annual meteor showers,” Chester said.

Compare the times of year when the Geminid (December) and Persied (August) meteor showers occur and it may be clear why it seems more people are familiar with the Persieds.

It comes down to the difference between enjoying a summer evening among fireflies or stargazing with frozen fingers.

“Which would you rather do, to be honest?” Chester said.

Overnight low temperatures on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are projected to be 23, 28 and 29 degrees respectively.

NASA will livestream the Geminid shower beginning at 9 p.m. on Dec. 13, from the Automated Lunar and Meteor Observatory at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

A meteor streaks past the faint band of the Milky Way galaxy above the Wyoming countryside early Tuesday morning, Aug. 13, 2013. (AP/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Blaine McCartney)

Planet Earth is about to pass through one of the most spectacular meteor showers of the year this week -- but it’s one that will likely go unnoticed by most of us.

The Geminids meteor shower is due to peak on Wednesday night, as our planet passes through the biggest swath of a trail of cosmic debris left over by a long-extinct comet.

The Geminids peak every year around this time in mid-December, but many fail to notice them because it’s not only a busy time of year, it’s also chilly for us northern hemisphere dwellers.

But those of you who can bundle up and brave the cold -- and if the skies are clear -- it will be possible to see upwards of 120 “shooting stars” an hour, as they bolt across the sky at a blazing 35 km per second.

They’re not actually stars, of course, but meteors made of dust and grit that light up as they slam into Earth's atmosphere and disintegrate into fiery streaks.

NASA considers the Geminids one of the best and most reliable meteor showers – a better cosmic show than the Perseids meteor shower that get plenty of attention in August. The cosmic display is visible around the globe but those in the northern hemisphere have the best view.

This year’s display should be particularly good, NASA says, because the moon is a thin, waning crescent this weekend, so it’s unlikely to obscure the show.

Though a few of the meteors are already becoming visible now, the shower will peak Wednesday night, says Bill Cooke with NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office.

"Good rates will be seen between 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 13 and dawn local time the morning of Dec. 14, with the most meteors visible from midnight to 4 a.m. on Dec. 14, when the radiant is highest in the sky,” he said in a NASA statement.

The Geminids can be seen with the naked eye, but you’ll need to find a spot where the skies are very dark. Then, give your eyes some time to adjust to the dark and start scanning the skies.

Meteors should appear all over the sky, though not all will belong to the Geminid shower. Some might be from “background meteors” with names like Sigma Hydrids, Monocerotids, and the Comae Berenicids.

"When you see a meteor, try to trace it backwards," Cooke advises. "If you end up in the constellation Gemini, there's a good chance you've seen a Geminid."