If you want If you want to start stargazing in 2025, you still have a chance to catch some of the best meteor showers of the year. Meteors, also called shooting stars, are formed when the path of Earth’s orbit crosses the path of debris left behind by a comet and this material burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Watching a meteor shower is one of the most accessible ways to experience the night sky.
The next shower will be the Geminids, a busy and radiant shower that peaks in mid-December and offers the chance to see hundreds of shooting stars every hour. This is just one of nine major meteor showers that grace the sky throughout the year. Below you will find details on when they will appear in the Northern Hemisphere. So mark them on your calendar for 2026.
The next gigantic meteor shower: the Geminids
The Geminids are vigorous from approximately December 4 to 17, peaking on the night of December 13 to 14. Their peak is acute, so the night of December 13 is the best time to observe the sky.
The Geminids are the most spectacular meteor shower of the year. In addition to boasting as many as 120 and even 150 meteors per hour at its peak, this meteor shower is also the brightest and most colorful of the year.
Geminids are radiant, slow-moving meteors that often have yellow tints, but can also have other colors, including green, blue, white, red or orange. Unlike most meteors, which are formed by the remnants of a comet, the Geminids are the remnants of an asteroid.
On the night the Geminids peak, their radiant, the constellation Gemini, will be above the horizon all night long and will reach its highest point around 2 a.m. local time, so the meteors will be perceptible almost all night long.
There will be approximately a moon that same night 32 percent illuminated and it will rise 1:30 a.m in the eastern United States, so if you watch this shower shortly after midnight, the moonlight won’t interfere with your viewing experience.
How to watch a meteor shower
You don’t need any special equipment to see a meteor shower – in fact, using devices like binoculars or a telescope actually makes it impossible to see the meteors because they are moving too swift to be seen through the lenses of such equipment. All you need are eyes, a murky sky with little or no moonlight, and a place away from excess lightweight, as moonlight and lightweight pollution can wash out shooting stars.
Note that the moon appears (rises) and disappears (sets) in the night sky at different times, depending on the time zone you are in. All moonrise and moonset times in this article are for the eastern United States. You can apply tools like Moonrise and moonset calendar by time and date Or is a tool from the United States Naval Observatory to check the exact moonrise/setting time for your exact location.