The last display of shooting stars for the year will be visible tonight, December 21, as the Earth passes through a cloud of cometary dust.
This is known as the Ursid meteor shower, and it is expected to peak during the night of December 21. It will still be visible in the early morning of December 22, too.
Met Office forecast to see the Ursid meteor shower in Cumbria
The Met Office forecast across Cumbria tonight isn’t totally negative. Some patchy clouds will be seen during the day, but sunny intervals may push through.
At night, the temperature drops significantly and there may be some fog disrupting visibility.
From 4pm there will be patches of cloud, with clear spells forecasted at 4pm and10pm. There will be partially clear skies at 9pm and 11pm.
This celestial display is associated with the comet 8P/Tuttle, also known as Comet Tuttle, which orbits the Sun once every 13 years.
The shooting stars appear to radiate from near the Beta Ursae Minoris (Kochab) in the constellation Ursa Minor.
The Ursid meteor shower is usually sparse, producing around five meteors per hour at its peak.
The display tonight coincides with a first quarter Moon, so weather permitting, shooting stars will still be visible in the night sky.
The meteors, mostly no bigger than a grain of sand, burn up as they hit the atmosphere at 36 miles per second to produce a shooting stream of light in the sky.
The best way to view the shooting stars is to get away from all artificial lights and allow at least 45 minutes for the eyes to adjust to the dark.
The meteors will be visible to the naked eye.
The display will also coincide with a rare planetary conjunction as Jupiter and Saturn will appear just 0.1 degrees apart – roughly equivalent to a fifth of the Moon’s diameter.
This conjunction – where objects appear very close to each other in the sky – will be the closest the two planets have appeared together since 1623.
Both the gas giants will appear to the naked eye as a single bright object in the night sky, which some refer to as the “Christmas star”.
The best time to observe the conjunction is between 4.30pm and 6pm UK time.
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