Quadrantid Meteor Shower 2024 To Peak On January 4; All You Need To Know

The moderate Quadrantid meteor shower which has been active since December 28 will peak on January 4.

The Quadrantids, which peak during early January each year, are considered to be one of the best annual meteor showers, according to NASA.

The Quadrantids have the potential to be the strongest shower of the year but usually fall short due to the short length of maximum activity and poor weather conditions in January, according to American Meteor Society.

According to In the Sky, in New Delhi, the shower will not be visible before around 12.07 AM each night, when its radiant point rises above the eastern horizon. It will then remain active until dawn breaks around 06:46 AM.

The meteor shower is expected to reach peak activity at around 4 PM IST on Thursday. During its peak, 60 to as many as 200 Quadrantid meteors can be seen per hour under perfect conditions.

As per EarthSky, the Quadrantid shower is one of four major meteor showers each year with a sharp peak (the other three are the Lyrids, Leonids, and Ursids).

• If one is viewing in dark conditions, the best viewing time will be after midnight, in the hours just before dawn.

• The best thing one can do to maximize the number of meteors they see is to get as far away from urban light pollution as possible and find a location with a clear, unclouded view of the night sky.

• The meteors will always travel in a path away from the constellation for which the shower is named. This apparent point of origin is called the "radiant."

Unlike most meteor showers which originate from comets, the Quadrantids originate from an asteroid: asteroid 2003 EH1.

Asteroid 2003 EH1 takes 5.52 years to orbit the Sun once. 2003 EH may be a "dead comet" or a "rock comet."

The asteroid was discovered on March 6, 2003, by the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search (LONEOS). It is a small asteroid – its diameter measures only about three kilometres. It was astronomer and research scientist Peter Jenniskens who realised that 2003 EH1 is the source for the Quadrantid meteors.