The closest meteor shower to the winter holiday season, the Ursids, comes hot on the heels of the Geminid meteor shower in late December each year. It’s not the most powerful shower of the year, yielding only about 10 shooting stars each hour, but in 2024, it peaks just hours after the northern hemisphere’s winter solstice on Saturday, December 21.
Ursids are also known to be brighter than most shooting stars. So if you are outside at this time of year and you do see a shooting star, it’s probably an Ursid.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Ursid meteor shower in 2024.
What Is The Ursid Meteor Shower?
If you see a shooting star, all you’re actually looking at is a tiny particle colliding with the Earth’s atmosphere, which glows for a split second as it heats up. These tiny particles of dust and debris are left in the solar system by comets as they pass through on their own orbit of the Sun. The Ursid meteor shower is caused by Earth bumping into dust and debris left by Comet 8P/Tuttle, which was discovered in 1790. Comet Tuttle was last seen in the solar system in 2008 and is due back in 2021.
About 5-10 Ursids per hour can be seen around the peak, with occasional outbursts producing over 25 per hour, according to the American Meteor Society.
Ursid Meteor Shower: When To Look For ‘Shooting Stars’
Although officially, the Ursid meteor shower stretches from December 13-24, Comet Tuttle leaves a fairly narrow stream of particles. So, if you want to see an Ursid meteor, you must make sure you view it very close to its peak. In 2024, that’s on the night of Saturday, December 21 and into the early morning of Sunday, December 22. The observing conditions this year will be reasonably good, with a waning gibbous moon not rising until midnight.
Ursid Meteor Shower: Where To Look For ‘Shooting Stars’
This is a meteor shower exclusively for those in the northern hemisphere. The “shooting stars” produced by the Ursid meteor shower appear to come from the Ursa Minor constellation, best known as either the Little Bear or the Little Dipper. The Ursids will appear to come from nearby, actually from closest to the star Kochab. Ursa Minor is a much smaller, dimmer constellation than the much more well-known Ursa Major—the Great Bear, which contains the famous Big Dipper—but there’s something special about Ursa Minor.
The star at the end of the tale of the little dipper is Polaris, which isn’t a particularly bright star (it’s actually only the 48th brightest star in the night sky) but has a special status among stargazers. Since Earth’s northern axis points at Polaris, it appears to sit directly above the North Pole, which is known as the North Star.
The Ursids can, therefore, only ever be seen in the northern hemisphere because Polaris cannot be seen by anyone below the equator.
Shooting stars from the Ursa Major shower can appear anywhere in the sky, so you don’t have to do anything particularly complicated to see one aside from hunting down a dark country sky free from light pollution.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
