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BY BOB HOLT
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
NASA officials believe the Quadrantid meteor shower, coming Wednesday morning, may feature more than 100 meteors per hour.
The first meteor shower of the new year is expected to peak at around 2:00 A.M. EST, according to space.com. It should arrive soon enough to avoid interference from the moon.
The moon should set at approximately 3:00 a.m., according to MSNBC, giving observers time to watch the shower under a dark sky before sunrise. Generally the Quadrantids are only around for a few hours, unlike other meteor showers, giving observers just a limited time to watch them.
The Quadrantids were named after the Quadrans Muralis constellation, which was named by French astronomer Jerome Lalande in 1795.
According to meteorshowersonline.com, the radiant of the quadrantids does not reach a very high altitude for most observers in the Northern Hemisphere before it ends. It is seen best by those living in with higher northern latitude areas.
Meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through debris remaining from comets or asteroids. The showers are often called "shooting stars." They often streak across the Earth’s atmosphere at about 90,000 miles per hour and burn up about 50 miles above the surface of the Earth, according to NASA.
The Huffington Post offers some of the best meteor shower images from 2011 here. And space.com has a calendar of some of the major meteor showers of 2012 that are visible at night.
