Space Events

First Meteor Shower of 2015 Peaks This Weekend

The first meteor display of the year will be the Quadrantid meteor shower. Meteor showers are usually named after the constellation in the sky where their radiant is located: the point in the sky from which they appear to radiate. Thus, the Perseids are named for Perseus and the Geminids are named for Gemini.

But there is no constellation named Quadrans. There once was a constellation named Quadrans Muralis, the Wall Quadrant, which was incorporated into the constellation Boötes in 1922.

While the Quadrantid meteor shower can produce as many bright meteors during its peak as the more famous Perseids, the shower's actual peak time is much narrower, making the chances of seeing a Quadrantid much less than those of seeing a Perseid. So timing is everything.

Past observations allow us to predict that the 2015 Quadrantid meteor shower will peak on the night of Jan. 3 at 9 p.m. EST (0200 GMT). During this time, the radiant will be close to the northern horizon and there is a good chance of seeing "Earth-grazers" — meteors coming in close to the horizon to the east and west.