                APOD: 2017 December 15 - Geminids of the North

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                               2017 December 15
                                      [2]
                            Geminids of the North
                  Image Credit & Copyright [3] : Yin Hao [4]

Explanation: Earth's annual [5]  Geminid meteor shower did not disappoint as
our fair planet plowed through [6]  dust from active asteroid [7]  3200
Phaethon. Captured in this northern hemisphere [8] nightscape, the meteors
stream away from the shower's radiant in Gemini [9] . To create the image, 37
individual frames recording meteor streaks were taken over period of 8.5 hours
during the night of December 12/13. In the final composite they were selected
and registered against the starry sky above a radio telescope dish of MUSER
[10] , a solar-dedicated radio telescope array at astronomically-named [11]
Mingantu Station [12]  in Inner Mongolia, China, about 400 kilometers from
Beijing. Sirius, alpha star of Canis Major, shines brightly just above the
radio dish and the Milky Way stretches toward the zenith. Yellowish Betelgeuse
is a standout in Orion [13]  to the right of the northen Milky Way. The
shower's radiant is at top left, high above the horizon near Castor and Pollux
[14]  the twin stars of Gemini. The radiant effect is due to perspective as
the parallel meteor tracks appear [15]  to converge in the distance. Gemini's
meteors enter Earth's atmosphere traveling at about 22 kilometers per second.

  Submitted to APOD:  Best images (so far) of the Geminid Meteor Shower 2017
                                    [16] .
                    Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend [17]

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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1712/GeminidsYinHaoC.jpg
  [3] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [4] mailto: yinhaobit [at] 126 [dot] com
  [5] http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/ earthskys-meteor-shower-guide
  [6] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2017/
heads-up-earthlings-the-geminids-are-here.html
  [7] https://arxiv.org/abs/1112.5220
  [8] ap100115.html
  [9] ap151217.html
  [10] http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015PASA...32...24D
  [11] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/2016-08/05/ c_135566298_4.htm
  [12] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/2016-08/05/ c_135566298_5.htm
  [13] ap161204.html
  [14] http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/pollux.html
  [15] http://globalcitizenblog.com/wp-content/uploads/globalcitizen/
railroad_tracks414.jpg
  [16]
https://www.facebook.com/pg/APOD.Sky/photos/
?tab=album&album_id=1293620127408870
  [17] ap171216.html
  [18] ap171214.html
  [19] archivepix.html
  [20] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [21] lib/aptree.html
  [22] http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  [23] calendar/allyears.html
  [24] /apod.rss
  [25] lib/edlinks.html
  [26] lib/about_apod.html
  [27] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=171215
  [28] ap171216.html
  [29] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [30] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [31] http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  [32] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [33] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [34] http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  [35] http://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [36] http://www.nasa.gov/
  [37] http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [38] http://www.mtu.edu/
