The 2012 Quadrantids is a little-known meteor shower named after an extinct constellation. It will peak in the early hours of Wednesday. The Quadrantids have a maximum rate of about 100 per hour, varying between 60-200. The waxing gibbous moon will set around 3 am, leaving about two hours of excellent meteor observing before dawn. Unlike the more famous Perseid and Geminid meteor showers, the Quadrantids only last a few hours — all or nothing early Wednesday.
Like the Geminids, the Quadrantids originate from an asteroid, called 2003 EH1. Studies suggest that this body could be a piece of a comet which broke apart several centuries ago, and that the meteors you will see before dawn on Jan. 4 are the small debris from this fragmentation. After hundreds of years orbiting the sun, they will enter our atmosphere at 90,000 mph, burning up 50 miles above Earth’s surface. DUCK!
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