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☄️ The Geminids meteor shower

The strongest shower of the year, and one of the few that comes from an asteroid. Active from 4 to 20 December.

The next peak · in 45 days

14 December 2026 at 13:41 UTC

Up to 150 meteors an hour under a dark sky. The Moon is 25% lit that night. A dark sky: a good year to watch.

The best hours are usually after midnight and before dawn, on the night of the peak and the night before.

The next few years

14 December 2027 at 19:51 UTCMoon 98% lit · Bright moonlight hides all but the brightest meteors.
14 December 2028 at 02:00 UTCMoon 5% lit · A dark sky: a good year to watch.
14 December 2029 at 08:09 UTCMoon 65% lit · Bright moonlight hides all but the brightest meteors.

At its peak: Up to 150 meteors an hour under a dark sky
Active: 4 to 20 December
Seems to come from: Gemini
Where to see it: From both halves of Earth, best from the north
Made by: Dust from the asteroid 3200 Phaethon

How to watch

Get away from city lights if you can, and give your eyes 20 minutes to get used to the dark. Don’t look at your phone.
Lie back and look at a wide stretch of sky. Meteors appear anywhere, though their trails point back to Gemini.
No telescope or binoculars: they show too little of the sky. Your eyes are best.
“Up to 150 an hour” is for a perfectly dark sky. From a town, expect a fraction of that.

Other meteor showers

All of them

Quadrantids Lyrids Eta Aquariids Perseids Orionids Leonids Ursids

Peak dates from the International Meteor Organization’s list of showers, worked out for each year; the Moon worked out with Astronomy Engine. Times are UTC until the page has loaded, then your own time zone.