Kindly see the updates of Meteor Shower below with images from across the world including NASA Source.
On 3rd - 5th January three celestial events would occur for people to appreciate. It’s just like a perfect welcome for the New Year 2012 providing an opportunity to people to appreciate science.
1. Spot Jupiter with Naked Eye Using Moon On 3rd Jan – Moon Conjunction with Jupiter: On Jan 3 at 04:44 a.m. IST (23.14pm UTC on 2nd Jan) Moon will be is in conjunction with Planet Jupiter. i.e. both moon and Jupiter appear to be near to each other as seen from earth.
Where to see /time: After Sunset if one looks at East Direction one would see Bright moon and a Non twinkling star like object just above right side of Moon. Which is nothing but planet Jupiter.
2. Quadrantids Meteor Shower (Dec 28th-12th Jan):
annual event of Quadrantids Meteor Shower is actively visible from 28th
Dec to 12th Jan. On 4th January this meteor shower will be at Peak. The
International Meteor Organization (IMO) expects maximum of 120 Meteors
per hour. It however based on past data it says the number of meteors
should vary from 60 to 200 Meteors per hour. Where to look/time:
Away from city light at 4.a.m. up till 12th January if one looks at the
area between East and North East directions one can see shooting stars.
In other words one can see bright streaks of light zipping across the
sky and would seem as if they are emanating from the constellation of
Bootes. This shower is called “Quadrantids Meteor Shower” because the
radiant of this meteor shower lies in Bootes constellation. The name of
the constellation comes from Quadrans Muralis, an obsolete constellation
which is now part of Boötes.
3. Earth at Perihelion: On 5rd January 2012 Planet Earth will be at closest point to sun in its elliptical orbit around Sun at 0.983 AU (147 million km) from Sun. Astronomically this is phenomena is known as “Perihelion”. Whereas on 5th July 2012 Earth will be at Aphelion at 1.017 AU (152 Million km approx) from Sun i.e. it will be at farthest point from Sun.
