The First Meteor Shower Of 2021 Will Light Up The Sky On New Years Weekend

NASA considers it to be one of the best annual meteor showers.
Contributor

The end of 2020 brought some pretty legendary celestial events, and lucky for us 2021 is kicking things off with a spectacular New Year's meteor shower.

The Quadrantid meteor shower will be the first major shower of 2021, with its peak predicted to be the late-night hours of January 2 and through the following morning.

The very unfortunate part is that the sky will also be illuminated by a bright waning gibbous moon, making it a little difficult to catch a glimpse of one of these zooming meteors.

But if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, you should still be able to catch a few, maybe even around 25 per hour, if you keep your head up and your eyes open.

In order to give yourself the best odds of spotting some of the meteors, you'll want to find a place away from street lights and tall buildings, you'll then want to lay on your back facing the northeast and simply look up.

Remember it is January so bring some winter clothes and a nice jacket, you could also throw in some coffee if you'd like to stay up for the whole show, which will last until the sun rises.

NASA was able to snag this amazing footage of a rare "double Quadrantid" sighting during last year's spectacle.

If you spot a meteor, it might not be a bad idea to go ahead and wish for 2021 to be much better than 2020.

  • Noah Borden was an Associate Editor for Narcity Media.

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