BALIK PULAU, Dec 15 — The Geminid meteor shower is a natural phenomenon that occurs only in December and can be clearly seen from the privately-owned Lim Choon Kiat observatory in Balik Pulau early this morning.
Penang Astronomical Society president Dr Chong Hon Yew said members, students and even astronomy aficionados will always wait for December because it is the time of the year where meteor showers are most active.
Over the past two days, around 312 Geminid meteors including five random meteors and one blue ball of fire can be clearly seen from the observatory in Balik Pulau.
According to Chong, the Geminids originate from the Asteroid 3200 Phaethon, which burns up when they hit the earth’s atmosphere resulting in a shower of lights also known as a shooting star.
“This time, we were fortunate because we could clearly see five random meteors happening during the Geminid meteor shower. A geminid is a meteor travelling from the north towards the south but a random meteor will appear from the south moving north.
“Based on my observation, a random meteor can only be seen several times over a period of a month but early this morning, we were fortunate to observe five. We were also able to see a bright blue ball of fire at 4.23am,” he said while observing the Geminid meteors early today.
According to Chong, members of the Penang Astronomical Society had started making preparations to observe the Geminid meteor at 10pm on December 13 but failed to record any sighting of the meteor because of the clouds but on December 14, they managed to record 150 Geminid meteor showers.
“The International Meteor Organisation (IMO) estimated that the meteor shower peak time was at 3pm local time. Unfortunately, we were not able to witness it because it was already daylight but countries like the United States were fortunate because it was night when the natural phenomenon happened,” said the former Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) lecturer.
Chong said the biggest Geminid meteor shower recorded was in 2004 with 1,103 showers in one night and the record still stands.
He added that the weather and presence of the moon made sighting of the Meteor Geminid showers challenging.
Up to 5.30am, some 20 observers stayed up to record the Geminid meteor shower. — Bernama
