HVCC Faculty Astronomy Expert Shares Information on This Weekend’s Geminid Meteor Shower, Known as “The Best of the Year”

December 11, 2025

Richard Monda Available for Interviews About Dec. 13-14’s Celestial Event

Hudson Valley Community College Assistant Professor Richard Monda is available for interviews on the upcoming Geminid meteor shower, which will be visible from the Capital Region (weather permitting) this weekend, Saturday and Sunday Dec. 13 and 14.

The meteor shower, now regarded by many amateur astronomers as the best of the year, will be at its peak Saturday, Dec. 13 through Sunday, Dec. 14, with North America well positioned to see it this year. If skies are clear, stargazers may begin to spot these shooting stars as early as 9 p.m., when the radiant point of the Geminids – the place in the sky where the meteors appear to stream from, located near the star Castor, one of the marker stars of the constellation Gemini – is fully above the eastern horizon. Castor reaches its highest point in the sky at around 2 a.m., and the predicted peak of the show will be around 3 a.m. this year.

While the Geminids are capable of producing roughly 150 meteors per hour, a realistic expectation for skywatchers at locations with minimal light pollution would be to see about 50 of them per hour over several hours. The Geminids are also known to contain fireballs, which are meteors that are brighter than the planet Venus. Some fireballs will show colors with hints of green or red, produced by the same atmospheric gasses that give the Northern Lights their color.

Geminid meteors originate from the asteroid 3200 Phaethon, an asteroid that passes within 13 million miles of the sun (about one third of the planet Mercury’s distance from the sun). This close approach bakes and cracks the asteroid’s surface, releasing dusty material along its orbital path. Every December, the Earth sweeps through this debris trail and the particles disintegrate while heating a path though the atmosphere, producing the meteor shower we see.

Richard Monda, who has taught Physics and Astronomy at Hudson Valley since 2001 and hosts the Eyes on the Sky video series on astronomy in the Capital Region and the Northeast, is available for press interviews and to share more information on the upcoming celestial event. Please contact Leanne Ricchiuti to schedule.