Quadrantid Meteor Shower Adds Spark to New Year's Start

Quadrantid meteors stream from a point in the sky below the handle of the Big Dipper. The shower peaks just before dawn on Sunday morning, Jan. 3. Stellarium

The Quadrantid meteor shower provides a dash of celestial fireworks to spice up the start of the new year. This annual shower is unusual in having a narrow peak of intense activity that lasts just 6 hours. If the peak occurs between 2 and 6 a.m. local time under a dark, moonless sky rural observers can see more than 100 meteors per hour.

Last year's "Quads" hit max under dark skies over North America. This year's peak takes place around 8:30 a.m. Central Time on Sunday, Jan. 3, at or after sunrise for the eastern two-thirds of the continent. If this is where you live then about 25 meteors per hour will brighten the pre-dawn sky.

A NASA camera captures a bright Quadrantid fireball. NASA, MSFC, MEO

Meanwhile, skywatchers on the West Coast, Alaska and locations further west are better positioned to witness the peak. And that would be wonderful were it not for the moon. The waning gibbous will shine high in the southern sky from the constellation Leo the entire night, its light blotting out many of the fainter meteors. Counts will probably be closer to 50 per hour from those locations and perhaps as low as 15 per hour from the eastern U.S.  

You might wonder how the moon can light up the entire sky. If it were extremely close to the Earth its light would be only regional, like a streetlight at an intersection. But it's far away (and big enough and reflective enough) to illuminate the entire sky across half the planet at a time.

Should you go out to see the shower? Don't ask me because you already know my answer: "Yes!" But don't feel bad if you miss it — there will be more Quads in your future including a dark display in 2022. Weather permitting, I plan to watch for an hour or more from 4:30 until the start of morning twilight around 6 a.m. If you join me be sure to face east or north to keep the bright moon at your back and preserve as much of your night-vision as possible. 

The mural quadrant, now a defunct constellation, was used to measure the positions of astronomical objects in the days of Tycho Brahe and Galileo. Johann Bode

Quadrantids shoot out of the obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis the mural quadrant, named for a wall-mounted, sextant-like instrument used to measure celestial positions. French astronomer Jérome Lalande created it in 1795 from faint stars below the Big Dipper's handle and northern Boötes. Like Testudo the tortoise and Rangifer the reindeer it was never widely recognized and soon became obsolete. The shower remains as a reminder of the quadrant's brief glory days. 

Every January the Earth orbits through the debris trail of asteroid 2003 EH1 and we see a meteor shower. Compared to the planets the asteroid's orbit is steeply tilted — 71° to the plane of Earth's orbit. NASA / HORIZONS 

Like December's Geminids, the "Quads" originate from material that crumbled from an asteroid rather than a comet. Its parent, discovered in March 2003, still bears the temporary designation 2003 EH1. The near-Earth object, just a few kilometers across, orbits the sun every 5.5 years. Earth's orbit intersects the asteroid's every January. As we cross its path, dusty, rocky debris strikes the atmosphere at 25 miles (41 km) a second and scratches out meteor after meteor to the delight of half-frozen skywatchers below.